Under an 1865 British law, a man with a red flag had to walk 60 yards ahead of any road locomotive.
The Red Flag Act capped speed at 2 mph in towns and 4 mph in the country.
More amazing facts
- 1864 In 1864 Spain seized Peru's bird-dropping islands.
- 1864 Olivier salad was invented in the 1860s by Lucien Olivier, a chef of French and Belgian origin at Moscow's Hermitage restaurant.
- 1865 The US paid a Civil War pension until 2020.
- 1865 Welsh is still spoken in Argentine Patagonia.
- 1865 · 1956 A witness to Lincoln's assassination talked about it on television.
- 1865 · 1969 In 1865 Jules Verne sent three men to the Moon from Florida, just as Apollo 11 did 104 years later.