If the English saying is to be trusted, the Britons write Manchester and read Liverpool. In 1830, the connection between these two English cities became much stronger. George Stephenson brought them together with the world’s first steam-powered railroad line.

At 11:20 a.m., Stephenson’s Rocket locomotive and eight cars left Liverpool for Manchester. The inventor built both the locomotive and the railroad together with all the bridges and overpasses. The width of a track selected by Stephenson is still considered to be a standard for all European countries other than Russia and Finland, which used to be a part of the Russian Empire.

But this date was marred by a sad event, also the world’s first one. The railway transport was so strange back then that the safety rules had not become public. William Huskisson, the Member of Parliament for Liverpool, who crossed the track too close to the fast-paced Rocket, which struck him and secured his place in history as the world’s first person ever killed by train.