Why is the roller coaster so named?
Do you like roller coasters? People love these mechanical games because they enjoy the speed, the fear, the eagerness to overcome challenges and the physiological explosion that occurs in the body.
Being at the top, we fully understand why it is called a mountain. But what about Russian? Did the Russians invent the ‘roller coaster’?
An interesting question, which we will answer today in our Curious Planet questions section.
The origin of the roller coaster
Modern roller coasters have their origins in Russia in the 15th and 16th centuries. Inspired by their towering mountains and snow-capped hills, the Russians built ice slides on wooden structures angled at 50 degrees.
Ice slides or ‘flying mountains’ were built in some Russian cities near rivers , for example in St. Petersburg and its Neva River, according to historian Robert Cartmell. These slides were tall, fast and long, and were the pioneers of modern roller coasters.
The brave users climbed some 25-meter-high wooden stairs to reach the highest point. They sat on sleds made of blocks of ice and let gravity do its thing , according to the Washington Post .
The slides were watered daily to keep them slippery. In the lower part, sand was placed that served to reduce speed, according to the historian Carroll Pursell.
Empress Catherine the Great is said to have ordered ice slides to be built in the palace gardens in St Petersburg.
This is how roller coasters were born.
Do you know what is the most curious? That nowadays, the Russians do not call them roller coasters, but they call them “Amyerikan Skiye Gorki”, which means “American coaster” . What a curiosity!
The first roller coaster in history
Although in Russia this concept originated. It was the French who, in 1885, gave shape to this idea. They added train cars and tracks to the Russian slides.
However, did you know that it was in the United States that the first roller coaster in history was built?
Yes, the first roller coaster in history was built, in 1884, by Marcus Thompson for an amusement park at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. The ticket was 5 cents.
Thompson is known as the “Father of the American Roller Coaster” . And it was built to steer people away from the ‘immoral’ amusements of their time, and to give them healthier fun.
They were slow-moving wagons powered by gravity. And they were designed so people could look to the sides and not straight ahead . So you could admire the designed scenes while the car glided at about 9 kilometers per hour .
Scenes were built to emulate beautiful landscapes from around the world. For example, Thompson constructed scenes of the Swiss Alps, among others.
Well, things have changed a lot.
Modern roller coasters reach incredible speeds. For example, the fastest in the world runs at 240 kilometers per hour. And the tallest mountain in the world is 139 meters high.
From those first ice slides to today’s super-fast roller coasters, humans seek to experience new sensations that exploit their senses. Fun is part of human nature.
What do you think?
This article was published on planetacurioso.com.
[ British ]
