Without you, we’d never know where zero longitude was, and that could make geolocation very difficult without a reference point.

… and the eastern border of the Texas panhandle with Oklahama would not be so easy to find … (look it up).

Historical fact, it took a whole International Meridian Conference, at the request of U.S. President Chester A. Arthur, to select this!

Stephenson’s The Rocket wins The Rainhill Trials. An important competition in the early days of steam locomotive railways for the nearly completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway, The Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the trials and became the template for the railway.

The Rocket, which brought together several innovations to produce the most advanced locomotive of its day, was so revolutionary at the time it is now on display in the Science Museum of London. While not the first steam locomotive, it was the foundation for the steam locomotives that would become a major means of transport in the UK in the nineteenth century and should not be lost to the annals of history.

The first steamboat, The New Orleans to sail the Mississippi River arrived in New Orleans. It ushered in an era of steamboat navigation on the western and mid-western continental rivers of the United States and opened up river-based logistics in the central US.

Air travel in the age of steam became a reality when the first dirigible, created by Henri Giffard made its maiden voyage from Paris to Trappes (in France). Filled with hydrogen, powered by a 3 HP steam engine, and weighing over 400 lb, the world’s first passenger-carrying airship was both practical (as long as you were careful about lighting that match) and steerable (as long as the winds weren’t too strong).