By: Lucas Wantuck Hello everybody and welcome to the first edition of February for “Five Interesting Facts About the World”! For today’s edition, I will cover everything about vehicles! That means cars, planes, bikes, boats, and everything else! So, without further ado, let’s get on with the facts! 1. The first ever car was a Mercedes Benz. Created by Karl Benz, the “Benz Patent-Motorwagen” was built in 1885 in Germany. The car was not very good and looked more like a tricycle if anything. The car had three wheels, a large bike steering wheel, and an engine in the back that was not well covered. 2. The first bicycle doesn’t look how you think it would! Another vehicle from Germany that also comes from a guy named Karl is the first ever bicycle, or “Laufmaschine”, as the German inventor Karl von Drais called it. This bicycle was created in 1817 and, strangely, had no pedals! The bike had one wooden beam as a frame, and in many of the pictures of it, people were seen riding it down hills. This makes sense because, without pedals, the only way to ride it was by going down a slope and using the momentum from the fall to speed up. 3. The most expensive car was sold for 142 million dollars! Sold at a private auction in a carmaker’s museum in Stuttgart, Germany, the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe Prototype sold for roughly 142 million dollars in 2022. The car was sold by RM Sotheby’s on behalf of the Mercedes-Benz company, and it was bought by Simon Kidston, also on behalf of someone, though the real owner remains anonymous to this day. 4. The US Space Shuttles are the most complex flying machines ever built. Created by Rockwell International in partnership with NASA, the space shuttles were built at the Rockwell Downey plant in 1981, and they are the most complex flying machines ever built. This is because every component of the shuttle has its complicated systems, and they all have a unique function. As well as having intricate systems, the shuttles were also designed to be reusable, which means that they had to be even stronger than normal ships to ensure that they could work multiple times. 5. The Concorde was the first supersonic passenger plane. The Concorde was created by a group of aircraft manufacturers from Great Britain and France. The plane was first built in February 1965. The speed for the Concorde is 1,354 miles per hour, or roughly Mach 2. And for those of you who don’t know, Mach 2 is more than twice the speed of sound! Sadly, the Concorde was retired for several reasons including: It was extremely noisy, it was very expensive to operate as it used a lot of gas, and it had restricted flight availability, so it was expensive to ride. Finally, the seating wasn’t the best and it was quite crowded compared to other luxury planes at that time. Sources:
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