A timeline with images of amusement park rides from 1845 to 1996. The timeline:

• 1846 The first railway to turn its passengers upside down opens at a park in Paris, France.
• 1884 The first true roller coaster in America appears at Coney Island, New York.
• 1893 The George Ferris Giant Wheel, named after the inventor, debuts at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. A ride costs 50 cents.
• 1900 Trolley companies build amusement parks to encourage weekend travel.
• 1928 The first fully steerable bumper car is invented.
• 1934 The first wild mouse coaster, with sharp turns and abrupt drops, is built in Germany.
• 1955 The first cartoon-themed amusement park opens in Anaheim, California.
• 1963 The world’s first log-in-water ride is an instant success at a park in Texas. Similar rides are soon being built around the world.
• 1996 A free-fall ride with a drop of 46 meters opens in Maryland.

The images are of:

• Looping gravity railway: This has a start turret, 13 meters above the ground. Riders experience an acceleration toward the loop’s center as they move around it.
• Ferris wheel: The first Ferris wheel was 80.5 m tall. It had wood-paneled cars. Each car had a mass of 13 tons and held as many as 60 people. Passengers moved at a speed of about 0.5 meters per second.
• Roller coaster: This version, about three kilometers long, catapults riders to about 25 meters per second in the first 4 seconds.
• Bumper car with Rubber bumper. The rubber bumper prolongs the time of impact and decreases the force of the collisions.
• Sun wheel, a modern twist on the Ferris wheel.
• Free fall ride with Sharp drop: Riders reach a maximum speed of about 25 meters per second during the drop.