Bertha Benz and the First Road Trip

Bertha Benz, the wife of Karl Benz, one of the inventors of the automobile, backed her husband's work with her fortune, but in the 1880s, the climate in Germany was against the "horseless carriage." The Kaiser loved horses and said that replacing them with a machine was not only foolish but unpatriotic. Karl built a one-horse-power open carriage automobile, but he was too timid to unveil his invention in public. On Aug. 12, 1888, Bertha took the car on the first road trip, a 65 mile, 12-hour journey. She drove to her sister's house to prove that cars could be a viable means of transportation. On the way, she noticed that Karl's wooden brake didn't work very well, so she stopped at a shoemaker and had him nail some leather on the wood to improve the braking system, thus inventing the brake pad.

(Friday Church News Notes, November 15, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

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