The world's first car, legend says, also had the first crash.

1769 · 1771 · apart: 2 years

Cugnot's steam wagon, built to pull cannons, went no faster than a walk, yet in 1771 it supposedly knocked down part of a wall.

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The event

• Cugnot's steam wagon, the first car1769 · Paris. Army engineer Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built a three-wheeled steam wagon to haul artillery for the French army. It moved at walking pace, kept stopping to raise steam and, legend has it, once crashed into a wall.

18th century

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