📖 Read more: The History of Consumption: Why We Always Want More
The age of feet: 200,000 years at 5 km/h
For most of our history, the maximum speed was that of running — about 20 km/h for short distances, 5 km/h at a steady pace. Homo sapiens conquered the planet “slowly” — perhaps the greatest irony of our history.
But slow speed wasn't a weakness — it was strategy. Humans are among the best endurance runners in nature. The technique of persistence hunting — hunting through exhaustion — allowed us to chase animals faster than us by running slower but farther. The African antelope runs at 80 km/h but overheats. Humans run at 10 km/h but can sweat — and wait.
🏃 Pheidippides: the first “speedster”
Legend says: 42 km Marathon → Athens, he announced “we have won” and died. The reality (Herodotus): Pheidippides ran Athens → Sparta — 246 km in 2 days. The modern ultramarathon “Spartathlon” recreates the route: record 20 hours 25 minutes (Yiannis Kouros, 1984).
Domestication: horses, wheels, Roman roads
The wheel: the first “upgrade”
It wasn't invented for transportation — but for pottery (the potter's wheel). The wheel on chariots appeared ~600 years later. Speed was “upgraded” to ~15 km/h (ox cart) — but with cargo.
Domesticated horse
Speed skyrocketed: 50–60 km/h at gallop, 40 km/day for steady travel. For 4,000 years, the horse was the fastest mode of transport. Alexander the Great conquered the known world at the speed of a horse.
Roman road network
80,000 km of paved roads — some still in use today. Cursus publicus: a message traveled 80 km/day, Rome → Londinium in 20 days. Speed doesn't depend only on machines — it depends on infrastructure.
📖 Read more: The History of the Mobile Phone: From Luxury to Dependency
The sea: the first “highway”
At sea, speed depended on the wind — something indifferent to human plans. A merchant ship traveled at 5–8 knots (9–15 km/h). But the sea had an advantage: you could transport tons, not kilograms. That's why the great empires were maritime — Phoenicians, Athenians, Venetians, British.
Magellan began the first circumnavigation of the Earth (1519–1522) — 3 years. Jules Verne imagined “80 days” (1873). Today, an airplane completes the journey in 42 hours.
🌍 London → New York travel by era
The Industrial Revolution: steam breaks the limits
Richard Trevithick: the first steam locomotive on rails
8 km/h — slower than a horse. But it carried 10 tons of iron + 70 passengers. Speed wasn't always the reason — volume was.
Stephenson's Rocket: 48 km/h
The first “fast” steam locomotive won the Rainhill Trials. Doctors warned: “speeds above 50 km/h will cause madness in passengers” and “the air will be sucked from their lungs.” Speed fears: as old as speed itself.
Liverpool → Manchester: the first railway
50 km in 1.5 hours. The first day was a tragedy: MP William Huskisson was struck by a train — the first railway fatality. Speed literally started by killing.
Trains changed time — literally
Before trains, every city had its own time (based on the sun). Bristol was 10 minutes behind London. Trains needed a unified schedule → Standard Time Zones (1884, Washington Conference). Speed invented modern time.
📖 Read more: The Teacher Who Created a Dictatorship in a School
«Speed kills distance. But distance was what protected communities, cultures, languages. Speed doesn't just connect — it homogenizes.»
The Automobile: Freedom Becomes Necessity
Karl Benz built the first gasoline automobile (1886): 16 km/h. Laughable by today's standards — but the idea was radical: individual speed, no rails, no schedule. Freedom.
🏎️ Ford Model T (1908)
72 km/h. Cost: $850 (later $260 — three months' wages). Ford's assembly line didn't just “invent” mass production — it invented mass automobilism. By 1927: 15 million Model Ts. America was paved with asphalt because there were cars — not the other way around.
🛣️ Interstate Highway System (1956)
Eisenhower: 77,000 km of highways. Justification: military (troop movement). Actual result: suburban sprawl, car dependency, death of public transportation. “Speed” designed entire cities.
💀 The Accidents
From 1886 to today: ~80 million deaths in car accidents. 1.35 million/year (WHO). More deaths than all 20th century wars. We “accepted” this death toll as the “price” of speed. Ralph Nader, “Unsafe at Any Speed” (1965), revealed that automakers knew — and didn't care.
📖 Read more: The Teacher Who Divided a Class by Eye Color
The airplane: the sky is no longer the limit
Wright Brothers: 12 seconds, 37 meters
The first flight at Kitty Hawk. Speed: ~48 km/h. Less than a Model T could manage. But it flew — and that was enough to change everything.
Chuck Yeager: Mach 1 — the sound barrier
Bell X-1, 1,235 km/h. Many believed it was impossible — that the plane would disintegrate. Yeager had broken ribs (horse fall 2 days prior). He didn't report the injury — he was afraid they'd ground him.
Concorde: Mach 2 — Paris → New York in 3.5 hours
2,180 km/h. Ticket cost: $12,000 (today's money). A technological marvel — a commercial failure. The Concorde was retired in 2003. Today, we fly slower than in 1976 — because cheap beat fast.
🚀 The turbulent relationship between speed and fear
1830: “Trains will cause madness.” 1900: “Cars above 30 km/h kill.” 1950: “The sound barrier can't be broken.” Every time speed increases, we react with fear — and then get used to it. “Normal” is addictive: what we consider slow today was impossible 100 years ago.
The speed of information
The real revolution wasn't physical speed — it was digital speed. Information no longer needs ships and horses — it travels at 300,000 km/second (speed of light through fiber optics).
📨 Message speed by era
📖 Read more: Jim Twins: Separated at Birth, Lived Identical Lives
Speed today: why we're anxious
We live in the fastest era in history — and we're more anxious than ever. That's no coincidence.
📱 Instant everything
Same-day delivery, instant messaging, on-demand streaming. Amazon is testing delivery in 30 minutes (US). TikTok serves videos before you even decide what you want. “Waiting” — something natural for 200,000 years — has become unbearable.
⏳ Shrinking attention span
Microsoft (2015): average attention span = 8 seconds (goldfish: 9). The study is disputed — but the trend is real. YouTube videos are getting shorter. Reels/Shorts/TikTok: 15–60 seconds. Speed devours depth.
🏭 Hustle culture
"I work 80 hours/week" — now a badge of honor. Speed isn't just physical — it's moral. Slow = lazy. Fast = productive. But Japan (karoshi) shows: speed kills literally — 10,000+ deaths/year from overwork.
«We once had time but no speed. Now we have speed but no time. Something doesn't add up.»
Slow movements: the resistance
Every acceleration generates a reaction. Slow Food (1986, Carlo Petrini, a reaction to the first McDonald's in Rome) launched a movement: Slow Travel, Slow Fashion, Slow Living. The idea isn't “going back to the past” — it's the conscious choice of pace.
The Netherlands (woonerf — shared streets), Denmark (biking culture), Japan (Shinrin-yoku — forest bathing): cultures that actively resist speed. Not because speed is bad — but because relentless speed leaves no room for what makes us human.
Speed began as liberation — less time traveling, more time for living. But somewhere along the way, speed became an end in itself. We don't run to get somewhere — we run because we've forgotten how to stop.