Baron Karl von Drais built the first two-wheeled vehicle without pedals in 1817

On 12 June 1817 the German inventor Baron Karl von Drais created the first bicycle, or rather a self-propelled two-wheeled carriage. It looked almost exactly like this specimen of 1820, made of cherry and walnut, from the Kurpfalz Museum in Heidelberg, and weighed about 20 kg. Yes, the first bicycles had no pedals. How did one get up speed, you ask? With one's feet, one's feet. The pedalled bicycle would be invented only in 1884. That is, originally it was in essence a scooter, which came to be called the draisine, after its inventor. Incidentally, Drais also invented the meat grinder and, it seems, the typewriter. It is curious that the German Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region became the birthplace of two inventions at once that made mankind mobile: Drais's bicycle and the first automobile, Benz's Motorwagen, patented in 1885

Report a translation error

September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

Baron Karl von Drais built the first two-wheeled vehicle without pedals in 1817

Read more

September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s