HOW BROAD IS YOUR KNOWLEDGE :- A BRIEF HISTORY ON SHIPS AND BOATS

We all know about ships but have we ever wondered what it's origin is??.

A brief history of ships and boats.

Prehistory and ancient times

~10,000BCE: First boats include rafts, skin, hide and bark boats, kayaks, and dugouts.

~5000BCE–3000BCE: Mesopotamian sailors invent sails.

~3000BCE: Ancient Egyptians make the first boats from wooden planks.

~2500BCE: Minoans and Mycenaeans become the first great ocean navigators, exploring the Mediterranean sea.

~1500BCE–27BCE: Greeks build giant warships, including biremes and triremes.

27BCE–400CE: Romans build galleys, the ancient ancestors of modern warships, with innovations including a raised bridge.

~300BCE: Archimedes (287–212BCE) figures out the science of floatation.

200CE: Lateen sails are being widely used in the Mediterranean (though they are believed to have been invented somewhat earlier in the Arab world).

Middle Ages

300: Vikings invent clinker building.

1200: The central rudder starts to replace the "steerboard."

1400–1600: Most large ships are wooden-built and sail powered, and include cogs, carracks, galleys, and galleons.

1620: Cornelis Drebble builds the first submarine from wood.

15th century: Great voyages by Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), Vasco da Gama (1460–1524), Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521), and others pioneer ocean exploration and circumnavigation.
The great age of shipping

Photo: The USS Constitution, nicknamed "Old Ironsides," is a classic, three-masted frigate (warship) dating from 1797. Long since retired from military duty, it's now a fascinating museum in Boston. Photo by Kathryn E. Macdonald courtesy of US Navy.

1777: First iron-hulled boat is built (in England).

1783: Marquis d'Abbans (1751–1832) builds the first steamboat.

19th century: Regular "packet shipping" services are established, sailing to timetables. Fast clipper ships set sailing records.

1807: Robert Fulton (1765–1815) sets a record for traveling from New York City to Albany with a steamboat called Clermont.

1819: Steamboat SS Savannah crosses the Atlantic in a record 29 days.

1836: Modern propellers are invented (independently) by Francis Pettit Smith (1808–1874) and John Ericsson (1803–1889).

1837: Great Western, a giant steam-powered ship called built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859) becomes the first iron boat to cross the Atlantic.

1850s: English shipbuilder John Jordan makes probably the first composite ship by adding wooden-plank cladding over an iron framework.

1870-1898: John Holland designs and builds the first practical, engine-powered submarine, but struggles to convince the US Navy of its potential.

1877: English inventor John Thornycroft patents an early form of the hovercraft based on a floating lily pad.

1884: Sir Charles Parsons invents a highly efficient steam engine called the steam turbine. In 1897, he develops a steam-turbine-powered motor launch called Turbinia.

1886: German auto pioneer Gottlieb Daimler uses a gasoline engine to power a boat.

1886: Gluckauf, one of the first ocean-going tankers, is built and launched in Britain.

1880: Retired Swedish naval officer Charles G. Lundborg invents SWATH (small waterplane area twin hull) boats that ride high above the waves on two submerged hulls.

Modern ships

~1900s: Wealthy people enjoy the romantic, luxurious age of ocean travel onboard liners such as the Mauretania, Lusitania, and Aquitania.

1906: Enrico Forlanini invents the hydrofoil. Telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell also plays a part in its development.

1912: A "practically unsinkable" luxury liner called Titanic secures a place in history as the most famous ocean catastrophe of all time when it hits an iceberg and sinks, killing over 1500 people.

1930s: Germans develop the snorkel, a breathing tube that allows diesel engines in submarines to operate underwater, reducing the risk of detection.

1943: Marine gas turbine engines are used for the first time.

1955: US Navy launches first nuclear-powered submarine, US

1956: Ideal X, the first container ship, is launched from Newark, NJ.

1959: Christopher Cockerell's hovercraft makes its maiden voyage.

1960: Jacques Piccard and Lt. Don Walsh of the US Navy dive to around 11km (6 miles) in the deepest part of the oceans, the Mariana Trench, in Trieste, a super-reinforced diving vessel (bathyscaphe).

1962: Scripps Institution's FLIP ship is first used to study the movement of ocean waves.

1964: A deep-diving scientific submersible called Alvin is developed by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and begins exploring the ocean to depths of almost 5km (3 miles).

1978: Scientific exploration vessel JOIDES Resolution is launched, allowing scientists to explore the seabed in more detail than ever before.

1992: US Navy scraps the last of its giant battleships, USS Missouri.

1993: US Navy launches an experimental, radar-invisible stealth boat called the Sea Shadow, based on a SWATH design. In 2011, the Navy announces it intends to scrap the vessel.

2012: The German-built MS Tûranor PlanetSolar becomes the first vehicle powered by photovoltaic solar cells to circumnavigate the world.

SOURCE:- www.explainthatstuff.com