Ford Builds Quadricycle: The Auto Age Starts
Henry Ford strapped a two-cylinder ethanol engine onto four bicycle wheels and drove his creation out of a tiny workshop on June 4, 1896. This raw prototype proved that a simple, affordable motor vehicle could exist outside the world of rich men's toys, directly sparking the founding of the Henry Ford Company and eventually the Ford Motor Company in 1903.
June 4, 1896
130 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on June 4
Chinese astronomers already knew it was coming. They'd tracked the sun for generations, mapped its moods, built careers on predicting its behavior. But when the…
Henry III was 22 years old when he inherited an empire stretching from Denmark to southern Italy — and he actually made it work. His father Conrad II left him a…
The world's first food monopoly wasn't wine. Wasn't bread. It was mold. King Charles VI handed the village of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon exclusive rights to ripen th…
Villagers from Kent and Sussex stormed Bayham Abbey and occupied it for a week, protesting Cardinal Wolsey's order to dissolve the monastery and redirect its we…
Lightning hit St Paul's steeple on a June afternoon and within hours, 500 years of medieval stonework were gone. The blaze burned so hot that molten lead from t…
The colony was gone before anyone could explain it. Raleigh never actually set foot on Roanoke Island — he funded the 1584 expedition but stayed in England, sen…
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