This is a timeline of transportation technology and technological developments in the culture of transportation.
Antiquity
20th millennium BC – rafts used on rivers. 7th millennium BC – Earliest known shoes. 6th millennium BC – Dugout canoes constructed. 4th millennium BC – The earliest vehicles may have been ox carts.David W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton University Press, 2010 p461 3500 BCE – Domestication of the horse and invention of the wheel in Ancient Near East Toys excavated from the Indus Valley Civilisation (3010–1500 BC) include small carts. 3000 BCE – Austronesians construct catamarans and outriggers. In the Mediterranean, galleys were developed about 3000 BC. 2nd millennium BC – Cart mentioned in literature; chariot and spoked wheel invented. 800 BC – Canal for transport constructed in Ancient China. 408 BC – Wheelbarrow referenced in Ancient Greece.
Middle Ages
5th century – Horse collar invented in China. 6th century – Evidence of a horseshoe in the tomb of the Frankish King Childeric I, Tournai, Belgium. Late 7th century – First suspension bridge, Maya Bridge at Yaxchilan 800 – The streets of Baghdad are paved with tar. 9th century – The sine quadrant, was invented by Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi in the 9th century at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. The other types were the universal quadrant, the horary quadrant and the astrolabe quadrant. 10th century – sea-going junk ships built in China. Late 10th century – Kamal invented in Arab world. 1044 – Compass invented in China. 13th century (or before) – Rocket missiles used in China. Rocket powered passenger vehicles did not appear until 1939. 1350 – Compass dial invented by Ibn al-Shatir. 1479–1519 – Da Vinci sketches pedalo. 1495–1504 – The oldest extant cable railway is probably the Reisszug, a private line providing goods access to Hohensalzburg Fortress at Salzburg in Austria. This line is generally described as the oldest funicular. 15th century – Jan Žižka built the precursor to the motorised tank, armoured wagons equipped with cannons. 1569 – Mercator 1569 world map published. Late 16th century – European sailing ships become advanced enough to reliably cross oceans.
17th century 1604 – The world's first recorded overland wagonway, the Wollaton Wagonway, is built by Huntingdon Beaumont in Nottingham, England, for the transport of coal. 1616 - The first recorded mechanical ropeway was by Croatian Fausto Veranzio who designed a bicable passenger ropeway 1620 – Cornelius Drebbel builds the world's first known submarine, which is propelled by oars (although there are earlier ideas for and depictions of submarines). 1644 - Adam Wybe builds world's first cable car on multiple supports. It was the biggest built until the end of the 19th century. 1655 - Stephan Farffler was a Nuremberg watchmaker of the seventeenth century whose invention of a manumotive carriage in 1655 is widely considered to have been the first self-propelled wheelchair. 1662 – Blaise Pascal invents a horse-drawn public bus which has a regular route, schedule, and fare system. 1672 – Ferdinand Verbiest built what may have been the first steam-powered scale model car.
18th century 1716 – Swedish scientist, Emanuel Swedenborg, creates the first concept of a hovering vehicle. 1720 - Differential gear invented by Joseph Williamson. 1731 - Sextant first implemented to accurately determine latitude. 1733 - William Kent developed an early stroller. 1740 – Jacques de Vaucanson debuted his clockwork powered carriage. 1760s - Inline skates invented. 1761 - Marine chronometer invented as a means to accurately determine longitude. 1769 – Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrates his fardier à vapeur, an experimental steam-driven artillery tractor 1776 – First submarine to be propelled by screws, and the first military submarine to attempt an attack on a ship, Turtle, is built by David Bushnell. The attack fails to sink . 1779 - The Iron Bridge built in Shropshire. 1783 - First parachute. 1783 – Joseph Montgolfier and Étienne Montgolfier launch the first hot air balloons triggering Balloonomania. 1783 – Jacques Charles and Les Frères Robert (Anne-Jean Robert and Nicolas-Louis Robert) launch the first Hydrogen balloon. 1784 – William Murdoch built a working model of a steam locomotive carriage in Redruth, England. 1789 - The pedal powered tricycle was invented by two Frenchmen, named Blanchard and Maguier. 1790s – Canal Mania, an intense period of canal building in England and Wales.
19th century Early 19th century 1801 – Richard Trevithick ran a full-sized steam 'road locomotive' on the road in Camborne, England. 1803 – Richard Trevithick built his 10-seater London Steam Carriage. 1803 – William Symington's Charlotte Dundas, generally considered to be the world's first practical steamboat, makes her first voyage. 1804 – Richard Trevithick built a prototype steam-powered railway locomotive and it ran on the Pen-y-Darren Line near Merthyr Tydfil Wales. 1804 – Oliver Evans (claimed to have) demonstrated a steam-powered amphibious vehicle. 1807 – Francois Isaac de Rivaz – the De Rivaz engine, the first internal combustion engine using hydrogen as a fuel 1807 - The Swansea and Mumbles Railway ran the world's first passenger horsecar tram service. 1807 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat, the world's first commercially successful steamboat, makes her maiden voyage. 1807 – Nicéphore Niépce installed his Pyréolophore internal combustion engine in a boat and powered up the river Saone in France. 1807 – Isaac de Rivas made a hydrogen gas powered internal combustion engine and mounted it on a vehicle. 1809 - First stone laid of first 'guided bus' passenger wagonway Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad. 1812 – First commercially successful self-propelled engine on land was Matthew Murray's Salamanca on Middleton Railway using toothed wheels and rail. 1812 – Timothy Hackworth's "Puffing Billy" ran on smooth Cast Iron Rails at Wylam Colliery near Newcastle 1814 – George Stephenson built the first practical steam-powered railway locomotive "Blutcher" at Killingworth Colliery. 1816 – The most likely originator of the Bicycle is the German, Baron Karl von Drais, who rode his 1816 machine while collecting taxes from his tenants. 1819 – , the first vessel to cross the Atlantic Ocean partly under steam power, arrives at Liverpool, England from Savannah, Georgia. 1819 - Denis Johnson invents kick scooter. 1822 – Stephenson built a locomotive and designed the railway for Hetton Colliery which is first railway not to use any horse-traction but it did have several rope hauled sections. 1822 – First Meeting of Liverpool Manchester Railway Company Permanent Committee. 1825 - Stephenson's Locomotion No. 1 runs on Stockton & Darlington Railway which opens as first public railway and uses horses and self-propelled steam engines and stationary engines with ropes along a single track. No stations and no timetables as anyone could hire the track to use their own vehicle on it. 1825 – Sir Goldsworthy Gurney invented a series of steam-powered passenger carriages and by 1829 completed the 120-mile journey from London to Bath, Somerset and back. 1825 - The first suspension railway was opened at Cheshunt, England, United Kingdom on 25 June. 1826 – Bill passed for Liverpool and Manchester Railway at second attempt and George Stephenson commences work on 35-mile twin track line permitting simultaneous travel in both directions between the 2 towns. Means of traction not specified to reduce opposition. 1828 – Stephenson's "Lancashire Witch" runs on Bolton and Leigh Railway line - a public goods line to connect Leeds and Liverpool Canal and Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal. Railway has rope hauled and self-propelled steam engines and single track. 1829 – Rainhill Trials to find best self-propelled engine for Liverpool Manchester line are won by Robert Stephenson's Rocket proving there is no need for horse traction or static engines on the main line. Rocket becomes basic formula for all future steam engines with boiler tubes, blast pipe, and the use of coal rather than coke. 1830 – Liverpool and Manchester Railway opens. First public transport system without animal traction, first public line with no rope hauled sections for main journey, first twin track, first railway between 2 large towns, first timetabled trains, first railway stations, first train faster than a mail coach, first tunnels under streets, first proper modern railway which formed the template for all subsequent railways. 1837 - The first electric locomotive built in 1837 was a battery locomotive. It was built by chemist Robert Davidson of Aberdeen in Scotland, and it was powered by galvanic cells (batteries). 1838 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's , the first purpose-built transatlantic steamship, inaugurates the first regular transatlantic steamship service. 1839 - An early electric boat was developed by the German inventor Moritz von Jacobi in 1839 in St Petersburg, Russia. It was a boat which carried 14 passengers at . It was successfully demonstrated to Emperor Nicholas I of Russia on the Neva River. 1840s – Railway Mania sweeps UK and Ireland. 6,220 miles (10,010 km) of railway line were built 1843 - Dalkey Atmospheric railway opens. 1847 - The first steam railcar was designed by James Samuel, the Eastern Counties Railway Locomotive Engineer, built by William Bridges Adams in 1847, and trialled between Shoreditch and Cambridge on 23 October 1847. 1849 - Sir George Cayley's gliders achieved brief wing-borne hops from around 1849.
Late 19th century
1852 – Elisha Otis invents the safety elevator. 1853 – Sir George Cayley built and demonstrated the first heavier-than-air aircraft (a glider). - Quadracycle invented. 1859 - First model railway for Napoléon, Prince Imperial. 1859 - Gaston Planté invented the lead–acid battery, the first-ever battery that could be recharged by passing a reverse current through it. 1860 - first urban horse railway line (a predecessor of trams), opened in Saint Petersburg. 1862 – Étienne Lenoir made a gasoline engine automobile. 1863 – London's Metropolitan Railway opened to the public as the world's first underground railway. 1863 – Étienne Lenoir– Hippomobile 1867 – First modern motorcycle was invented. 1868 – Safety bicycle invented. 1868 – George Westinghouse invented the compressed-air brake for railway trains. 1868 – Louis-Guillaume Perreaux's steam velocipede, a steam engine attached to a Michaux velocipede. 1869 - Jules Suriray, a Parisian bicycle mechanic, designed the first radial style ball bearing.See: Suriray, "Perfectionnements dans les vélocipèdes" (Improvements in bicycles), French patent no. 86,680, issued: 2 August 1869, Bulletin des lois de la République française (1873), series 12, vol. 6, page 647. Louis Baudry de Saunier, Histoire générale de la vélocipédie [General history of cycling] (Paris, France: Paul Ollendorff, 1891), pages 62–63. 1870 - First definite record of a kicksled. 1874 - Midland railway introduces the first bogie. 1875 - World's first electric tram line operated in Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg, Russia, invented and tested by Fyodor Pirotsky.C. N. Pyrgidis. Railway Transportation Systems: Design, Construction and Operation. CRC Press, 2016. P. 156Ye. N. Petrova. St. Petersburg in Focus: Photographers of the Turn of the Century; in Celebration of the Tercentenary of St. Petersburg. Palace Ed., 2003. P. 12 1880 – Werner von Siemens builds first electric elevator. 1881 - World's first commercially successful electric tram, the Gross-Lichterfelde tramway in Lichterfelde near Berlin in Germany built by Werner von Siemens who contacted Pirotsky. It initially drew current from the rails, with overhead wire being installed in 1883.