Humans have always sought to move worldwide, whether by land or sea. It is impossible to predict where and how transportation will take us in the future. However, we have already gone from simple canoes to space travel. The following is a transportation timeline, starting with the first 900,000-year-old vehicles and ending in the present day.

Boats were the first means of transportation devised specifically for crossing waterways. The first people to cross the ocean have been attributed to those who first colonized Australia around 60,000–40,000 years ago, but there is evidence that pelagic trips took place as far back as 900,000 years ago.

Logboats, also known as dugouts, were the earliest known boats, and they were constructed by hollowing out a tree trunk. Artifacts dating back between 10,000 and 7,000 years support floating vehicles’ existence. The Pesse canoe, a logboat, dates back to 7600 BCE, making it the oldest boat ever discovered. Artifacts dating back 8,000 years show that rafts have been around almost as long.

After that, there were the horses. To determine when humans first began domesticating them as a means of transportation and carrying goods, experts generally look to the development of specific human biomarkers and cultural traits that indicate when such practices began to occur.

Experts believe that domestication occurred around 4000 BCE, based on changes in teeth records, butchering activities, shifts in settlement patterns, and historical depictions. This is corroborated by evidence gathered from horse genomes, which show alterations in muscle structure and cognition.

The wheel was also invented roughly during this period. In 3500 BC, archaeologists found evidence of wheeled vehicles in Mesopotamia, the Northern Caucuses, and Central Europe. The “Bronocice pot,” a ceramic vase depicting a four-wheeled wagon with two axles, is the earliest well-dated artifact from that period. Polish archaeologists discovered it in the southern part of the country.

The invention of the Watt steam engine in 1769 altered the course of history. France’s Claude de Jouffroy built the “Pyroscaphe,” the world’s first steamship, in 1783. However, after successfully ferrying people up and down the river in the course of a demo, there was not enough demand to justify further development funding.

The American Robert Fulton took steamship technology to the point of commercial viability while other inventors failed miserably. In 1807, a trip from New York City to Albany required 32 hours.

The “Roper Steam Velocipede” attempted to repurpose the steam engine for personal transportation. One of the first motorcycles was a two-wheeled steam-powered bicycle developed in 1867.

The locomotive was a steam-powered mode of land transportation that became popular. To get to a nearby village, Richard Trevithick, a British inventor, unveiled the “Puffing Devil,” the world’s first road locomotive, in 1801. Three years later, Trevithick showed off a rail-powered locomotive and another that could tow 10 tons of iron from the Welsh village of Penydarren to Abercynon.

George Stephenson, a British civil and mechanical engineer, was the man who made mass transportation possible with locomotives.