Hot-air balloons fill the skies at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in New Mexico in 1989 Joseph Sohm Chromosohm Inc Corbis
Technology and Inventions TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 TRANSPORTATION Before There Were Automobiles 6 Automobiles How Henry Ford Made the American Car 8 Airplanes The First Flights 10 Ships From Rafts to Ocean Liners 12 Submarines Silent Stalkers of the Sea 14 COMMUNICATION Paper Turning Trees to Paper 16 Printing Gutenberg’s Gift 18 Braille Books to Touch 20 Sight and Sound Eyes That Hear Speech That’s Seen 22 Telephones Staying in Touch 24 Computers The Machines That Solve Problems 26 Internet and the World Wide Web Network of People 28 ENERGY Electricity Cables Fuses Wires and Energy 30 Wind Power Energy in the Air 32 Thermal Power Energy from Heat 34 Water Power Streams of Energy 36 Nuclear Energy Big Energy from a Small Source 38 Oil From the Ground to the Filling Station 40 Pollution Harming Our Environment 42 PROFESSIONS DAILY LIFE Weaving Making Cloth 44 Calendar Charting the Year 46 Measurement Figuring Out Size and Distance 48 Photography Drawing with Light 50 Motion Pictures Photos That Move 52 Radio Thank You Mr Marconi 54 Television The World in a Box 56 Medicine Looking to Nature for Remedies 58 Telescopes Exploring the Sky 60 GLOSSARY 62 INDEX 63 Brit a nnic a LEARNING LIBRARY
Before T h e r e W e r e Aut o m o b i Long ago most people had to walk wherever they wanted to go on land l es Later when large animals began to be domesticated some people rode camels horses donkeys oxen and even elephants Then came the discovery of wheels The people of Mesopotamia now in Iraq built wheeled carts nearly 5,000 years ago But so far the earliest cart that has actually been found is one made later than those in Mesopotamia by people in ancient Rome It was simply a flat board At first people themselves pulled carts Later they trained animals to do this As people used more and more carts they had to make roads on which the carts could travel easily In Europe and North America carts developed into great covered wagons and then into stagecoaches Pulled by four or six fast horses stagecoaches first bounced and rolled along the roads in the mid-1600s They became important public transportation during the 19th century It wasn’t until the steam engine was invented that a better means of transportation developed and that was the train Steam locomotives used steam pressure from boiling water to turn their wheels 6
TRANSPORTATION DID YOU KNOW In the days of stagecoaches a 350 mile journey could take 36 hours and 24 changes of horses Today it would take less than six hours and one tank of gas The first passenger train service began in England in 1825 Soon trains were rushing hundreds of thousands people wherever iron tracks had been laid The first automobiles were not built until the late 1890s Some of the earliest were made in the United States and England though they were slow and broke down a lot They looked much like carts with fancy wheels What most of us recognize as a car wouldn’t come along for several more years S EA R C H LIG H T What were the first things people used to get around a their own feet b carts c donkeys LEARN MORE READ THESE ARTICLES AIRPLANES AUTOMOBILES SHIPS Answer a their own feet
