On December 12, 1955, English engineer Christopher Cockerell filed the patent for his new invention, the hovercraft, a craft capable of traveling over land, water, mud or ice and other surfaces both at speed and when stationary.
On April 29, 1785, German inventor Karl Drais was born, who invented the Laufmaschine ("running machine"), also later called the velocipede or draisine, also nicknamed the dandy horse