Work begins in the Urals and at Vladivostock, laying track which will eventually join up as the Trans-Siberian railway

German aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal achieves the first of many guided flights in a glider, from a hill near Potsdam

Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen sails into the Arctic in the purpose-built Fram, beginning a three-year expedition to reach the North Pole

Joshua Slocum sails from Boston in his sloop Spray for his attempt at a solo circumnavigation of the world

US engineer Henry Ford test-drives his first four-wheel internal-combustion vehicle, the Quadricycle, built in a coal shed behind his home

Otto Lilienthal dies when a wing fractures on his glider and he crashes from a height of 17 metres

Turbinia, powered by the newly invented Parsons steam turbine, breaks the speed record when Queen Victoria reviews her fleet

Joshua Slocum reaches Newport, Rhode Island, after sailing 46,000 miles to achieve the first solo voyage round the world

Joshua Slocum publishes Sailing Alone Around the World, an account of his famous 1895-8 circumnavigation

Robert Falcon Scott sets off in the Discovery on his first expedition to the Antarctic

French automobile pioneer Leon Serpollet sets a new land speed record, driving a steam car at 75 mph along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice

William K. Vanderbilt drives the first internal-combustion car to win the land speed record, at 76 mph at Ablis in France

William Harley and three Davidson brothers begin the commercial production in Milwaukee of motorcycles, but complete only three by the end of the year

Britain's first national motor show is organized at the Crystal Palace, moving two years later to Olympia

Britain's Automobile Association is founded, with patrol-men on bicycles to assist drivers

The first boat to be powered by a combustion engine, the 125-ton vessel Venoga, is launched on Lake Geneva

The Cunard company launches the Lusitania on the Clyde as a sister ship to the Mauretania

Roald Amundsen and his crew are the first to achieve the Northwest Passage, in a journey lasting three years in a 70-ft fishing boat

The British liner Lusitania sets a new record for the Atlantic crossing, on the first of four such occasions

Ernest Shackleton, leading an expedition to the Antarctic, locates the south magnetic pole

The first Model T Ford rolls off the production line at the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit

Sea captain Joseph-Elzéar Bernier unveils a plaque in the Arctic Archipelago, declaring that all the islands belong to Canada

Louis Blériot is the first to fly across the English Channel, winning the £1000 prize offered by the Daily Mail

Joshua Slocum, the most famous sailor of the day, vanishes on another lone voyage

Charles Stewart Rolls becomes the first man to fly non-stop across the English Channel and back