Facts from Czech History
1815: The first public demonstration of a steam-driven passenger-carrying car was given by Jozef Božek (1782-1835), workshop foreman at the Estates Polytechnic in Prague. This institution had been proposed by the physicist and engineer František Josef Gerstner (1756-1832), who became its first director.
In 1807-08 Gerstner and Brožek had collaborated on the design and construction of the first steam engine in the Habsburg monarchy. (N.B. Cugnot’s ‘steamer’ of 1770 had been demonstrated for the French Minister of War.) In 1817 Božek demonstrated the first steam-boat.
