Karl Drais was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 inventor and invented the Laufmaschine ("running machine"), also later called the velocipede

Velocipede

Velocipede is an umbrella term for any human-powered land vehicle with one or more wheels. The most common type of velocipede today is the bicycle....

, draisine

Draisine

A draisine primarily refers to a light auxiliary rail vehicle, driven by service personnel, equipped to transport crew and material necessary for the maintenance of railway infrastructure....

(English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

) or "draisienne" (French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

), also nicknamed the dandy horse

Dandy horse

The dandy-horse, also known as hobby-horse, is a human-powered vehicle that, being the first means of transport to make use of the two-wheeler principle, is regarded as the forerunner of the bicycle. The dandy horse was invented by Baron Karl Drais in Mannheim, Germany, and patented in January 1818...

. This incorporated the two-wheeler principle that is basic to the bicycle

Bicycle

A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....

 and motorcycle

Motorcycle

A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...

 and was the beginning of mechanized personal transport. Drais also invented the earliest typewriter

Typewriter

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...

 with a keyboard in 1821, later developed into an early stenograph machine, and a wood-saving cooker including the earliest hay chest.
From 1803 to 1805, Drais studied architecture, agriculture and physics at the University of Heidelberg.

He joined the civil service as a forestry

Forestry

Forestry is the interdisciplinary profession embracing the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands...

 official, worked as a teacher in his uncle's private forestry institution, and in 1810 received the title of chief forester, but was not yet assigned a commensurate position. One year later he was suspended from active service, but continued to receive his salary so that he could devote more time to his inventions. Drais' most influential invention was the Laufmaschine, or velocipede, the earliest form of a bicycle, yet without pedals. His first reported ride, from Mannheim

Mannheim

Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

 to the "Schwetzinger Relaishaus" (a coaching inn, located in "Rheinau", today a district of Mannheim) took place on June 12, 1817. In the same year, he undertook his second trip, from Gernsbach

Gernsbach

Gernsbach is a town in the district of Rastatt, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the river Murg, east of Baden-Baden in the Black Forest. Twin towns are Baccarat in France and Pergola, Marche in Italy....

 to Baden-Baden

Baden-Baden

Baden-Baden is a spa town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the western foothills of the Black Forest, on the banks of the Oos River, in the region of Karlsruhe...

, and others.

On January 12, 1818, Drais was awarded a grand-ducal privilege (Großherzogliches Privileg) to exploit his invention. Baden had no patent law at that time. Grand Duke Karl also appointed Drais Professor of Mechanics

Mechanics

Mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behavior of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effects of the bodies on their environment....

. This was merely an honorary title, not related to any university or other institution. Drais retired from the civil service and continued to receive his salary as a kind of inventor's pension.

Disaster overtook Drais when a political murder was followed by the beheading of the murderous student, Ludwig Sand, in 1820. Drais' father, as the highest judge of Baden, had not pleaded for pardon, and his son was mobbed by the student partisans everywhere in Germany. Therefore, from 1822 to 1827, Drais emigrated to Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 as a land surveyor on the fazenda of Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff

Grigori Ivanovitch Langsdorff

Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, Baron de Langsdorff was a Prussian aristocrat, politician and naturalist. He lived in Russia and was better known by his Russian name, Grigori Ivanovitch...

, yet returned to Mannheim.

H. E. Lessing has shown by circumstantial evidence that the climate anomaly of 1816, Year Without a Summer

Year Without a Summer

The Year Without a Summer was 1816, in which severe summer climate abnormalities caused average global temperatures to decrease by about 0.4–0.7 °C , resulting in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere...

, due to the eruption of Tambora that impaired transportation in Europe by crop failure and starvation of horses, was the cause of Drais' invention of the velocipede.http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18524841.900-brimstone-and-bicycles.html

Drais died in his hometown of Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe

The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

 in 1851, penniless after the Prussians had suppressed the revolution of 1849 in Baden and seized his pension completely to pay for the "costs of revolution." Drais' undoing had been the fact that he had publicly renounced his noble title in 1848, and adopted the name "Citizen Karl Drais" as a tribute to the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

.

External links

• "Brimstone and Bicycles" by Mick Hamer of New Scientist, 29 January 2005
• www.karldrais.de by S. Fink and H. E. Lessing (choose English version)
• karl-drais.de of ADFC Mannheim, providing a short biography in more than 15 languages
• Karl Drais in Baden-Baden by Hans-Erhard Lessing
• Article in the Neue Deutsche Biographie by Sigfrid von Weiher