The wheel is one of the most important and useful things ever invented, though its full benefits have only been realized in the past one or two hundred years. Today, many everyday things, such as combustion engines, electric motors, and timepieces, depend on wheels to function. The most visible, however, are wheels used in transportation.

The first wheels are thought to have been used in the Middle East as early as 7,000 years ago to make pottery. Wet clay was put on a round disc of stone, which was spun around, time and again, while the potter shaped the clay into pots and other vessels.

Around 5,500 years ago, someone in Europe or the Middle East had an idea to turn wheels 90 degrees and attach them to various types of early carts and wagons, usually pulled by oxen or horses, allowing people to move supplies and other loads more efficiently than dragging or pushing them along the ground.

Some began to use wheeled vehicles in agriculture, probably carrying manure into the fields and harvests and firewood to villages. Others harnessed wheels for military purposes, building battle wagons and chariots, the latter wreaking havoc on battlefields before the common era. Herders, in turn, made wagons their homes, allowing them to follow slowly moving flocks of sheep and cattle ever further on the plains.

Yet, vehicles on wheels did not become widely used soon. For some, it was easier to transport heavy loads through rivers and waters, while others may have lacked draft animals. Roads, too, were few before the Romans began to build route networks across their vast empire, starting in 312 BCE.

People themselves preferred to travel on horseback or camels for thousands of years – it was considered more dignified. Only in the 16th century did royals and the rich submit to travel in wagons. Once cities began to grow in the midst of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, commuting on horse-drawn carriages on the urban streets became common for ordinary people as well.

Streets, however, started to fill with pee and poo when even hundreds of thousands of horses created secretions in the cities. Not only was the smell awful, but diseases spread, too. Railways, becoming common in the 1830s, worsened things as trains enabled people to travel between cities quickly. Therefore, the idea of horseless carriers got a foothold, and bicycles and cars emerged at the end of the 19th century.

Bibliography

Standage, T. 2023. A Brief History of Motion from the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next. New York, United States: Bloomsbury Publishing. 246 p. ISBN 9781635579369. Pages xi-xiv, 1-26, 39-53.

DK. 2021. Science the Definitive Visual Guide. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. 520 p. ISBN 9780241446331. Pages 20-21.

Smithsonian. 2018. Inventions a Visual Encyclopedia. New York, United States: DK Publishing. 304 p. ISBN 9781465458384. Pages 12-15.

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