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Events on December 31 in history

Two-stroke engine
1878Dec, 31

Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879.

Carl Friedrich Benz (German: [bɛnts] (listen); 25 November 1844 – 4 April 1929), sometimes also Karl Friedrich Benz, was a German engine designer and automotive engineer. His Benz Patent Motorcar from 1885 is considered the first practical automobile and first car put into series production. He received a patent for the motorcar in 1886.

His company Benz & Cie., based in Mannheim, was the world's largest automobile plant of its day. In 1926 it merged with Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft to form Daimler-Benz which produces the Mercedes-Benz among other brands.

Benz is widely regarded as "the father of the car" and "father of the automobile industry".

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Events on 1878

  • 3Mar

    Treaty of San Stefano

    The Russo-Turkish War ends with Bulgaria regaining its independence from the Ottoman Empire according to the Treaty of San Stefano; a few months afterwards the Congress of Berlin stripped its status to a vassal principality of the Ottoman Empire.
  • 25May

    Comic opera

    Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore opens at the Opera Comique in London.
  • 10Jun

    Treaty of San Stefano

    League of Prizren is established, to oppose the decisions of the Congress of Berlin and the Treaty of San Stefano, as a consequence of which the Albanian lands in Balkans were being partitioned and given to the neighbor states of Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece.
  • 15Jun

    Sallie Gardner at a Gallop

    Eadweard Muybridge takes a series of photographs to prove that all four feet of a horse leave the ground when it runs; the study becomes the basis of motion pictures.
  • 22Oct

    Salford, Greater Manchester

    The first rugby match under floodlights takes place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton.