Pioneers: man's 50 fastest moments

When early Man needed a fix of speed, he would rely mostly upon gravity or his horse. Life remained this way for many thousands of years.

It wasn't until the early 1800s that machines began providing motion, but even then, it was still quicker to saddle up and ride alongside. It would be another 100 years or so before mechanical power started propelling humans towards the horizon at any meaningful rate.

And it was only in the golden era of the Twenties and Thirties that we dismounted our early contraptions - for that is what they were - and boarded the modern machines that drove us higher, longer and faster than ever before.

It didn't take long for things to get really quick, especially with the gears of war providing the cash and willpower to build rocket-planes and load the test pilots who risked their hides by lighting a fuse and aiming for the farthest bits of sky. The Forties saw us go supersonic with General Chuck Yeager and the Bell X-1. By the Sixties, we were flying twice as fast as that... often while sipping champagne on a transatlantic Concorde hop.

Depending on which professor you believe, the human race has existed for between 150,000 to 300,000 years. And it's only in the last century or so that we've really put our foot down, going from zero-ish to 24,790mph - the fastest speed of any manned vehicle, achieved by Apollo 10 astronauts on their way back from the Moon - in just a few decades.

If things carry on like this, imagine what this story will look like in 2115. If we remember to belt up, we might still be here to tell it...

Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick is the first to take steam engines out of buildings and onto roads and railway tracks. The Penydarren locomotive becomes the first steam-hauled train in the world.

1829 // 29mph (Pictured)
By moving steam through the boiler in multiple pipes rather than one, and improving firebox ventilation with a new blastpipe, George Stephenson's Rocket is more powerful than any rival, and sets the locomotive design standard for the next 150 years.

1886 // 9mph
With its 0.954-litre, 1cyl petrol engine, Karl Benz's Patent-Motorwagen becomes the world's first car. Despite the lack of roads, he still sells 25, and goes on to form a rather successful car company.

1903 // 7mph
The 4cyl, 12bhp Wright Flyer becomes the world's first proper aeroplane when it flies for 120 feet under its own lift and power, with Orville Wright aboard.

1904 // 103mph
Often missed off the roster of speed pioneers, Frenchman Louis Rigolly becomes the first man - according to Guinness World Records - to drive at over 100mph, in his 13.5-litre Gobron-Brillié.

Harry Myers of Dayton, Ohio, becomes the first driver to be issued with a speeding ticket.

1912 // 100mph
As well as being the first pilot to fly at over 100mph, aviator Jules Védrines later became the first to touch down on the roof of a department store when he deliberately crash-lands on the Galeries Lafayette in Paris, winning a 25,000 franc prize.

1925 // 100mph (Pictured)
Built in Nottingham, the Brough Superior SS100 sells for £170 and each one comes with a written guarantee that it's been clocked at 100mph on the road, making it the first road bike to do over a ton. Lawrence of Arabia loves it, but the attraction proves fatal when he dies while riding his along a country lane in Dorset.

1927 // 203mph
Driving a 1,000bhp Sunbeam at Daytona Beach in 1927, Henry Segrave becomes the fastest man on land at 203mph. Later, while setting the world water speed record, his boat hits a floating log. He dies several days later.

1928 // 300mph
Italian test pilot Mario de Bernardi becomes the first man to exceed both 300mph and 500kph, off the coast of Venice aboard a Macchi M.52R racing seaplane fitted with a monstrous 1,000bhp, 12-cylinder Fiat aero engine.

American Gar Wood skippers his boat Miss America IX to 102mph, the fastest any human has ever travelled on water, let alone one standing a mighty 5ft 6in tall.

1932
The first autobahn opens in Germany between Cologne and Bonn

1932 // 253mph (Pictured)
Sir Malcolm Campbell breaks the land speed record with a 253mph effort at Daytona, the first of many to come. Despite also racing in GPs and setting water speed records, he later becomes one of the only speed pioneers to die of natural causes.

1934 // 100mph
While cars and planes tore up the record books, trains hadn't moved on much since the very early locomotives... that is, until the Flying Scotsman steamed into history with this 100mph run in 1934.

1935 // 300mph
Malcolm Campbell hits the triple ton at Bonneville.

Two nights before Chuck Yeager becomes the first human to travel faster than the speed of sound, he falls off a horse and breaks two ribs. This makes it tricky to manhandle the hatch of his tiny Bell X-1 rocket plane, so he secretly packs a broom handle, which helps him to lever it shut.

1947 // 394mph
In the age of aerodynamic streamliners, former RAF pilot and ballsy Brit John Cobb decided to go fast on land too. His three-tonne Napier-Railton, with two huge W12 aero engines, averages 394.19mph over two runs at Bonneville, looking every inch like a rapid silver turtle. He later dies on Loch Ness, attempting similar feats on water.

1954 // 632mph (Pictured)
Real-life crash test dummy John Stapp experiences 46.2g when his Sonic Wind rocket sled comes to a dead stop from 632mph, followed, presumably, by some sort of sonic follow-through...

1955 // 202mph
Donald Campbell, intrepid son of Sir Malcolm, busts the water speed record with a 202mph run on Ullswater in the Lake District, aboard his jet-engined Bluebird K7 hydroplane.

1958
Rally driver Maurice Gatsonides invents a camera that measures and records his cornering speeds. Later, his design evolves into the Gatso speed camera. Yeah, thanks for that, Maurice...

TopGear didn't exist in the Sixties. If it had, we'd have been the ones doing a perfectly legal 149mph up the M1 in a not-yet-launched Jag E-type, not a journalist from The Telegraph. Sorry.

1964 // 403mph
It's Donald Campbell again, back on land this time. Specifically at Lake Eyre in Australia with Bluebird CN7, averaging 403mph. Campbell was disappointed - he'd been going for 500.

1965 // 600mph (Pictured)
The Brits don't have things all to themselves, especially when American Craig Breedlove turns up with his 600mph Spirit of America, kick-starting the age of the jet-powered land speed record car.

1965 // 70mph
The British government introduces a temporary 70mph limit on all UK motorways. Unfortunately, as cars and brakes get better, they forget to remove it. Are you still there, guys?

1967 // 4,519mph
American test pilot Pete Knight is dropped into the sky by a B-52 mothership. He fires up his X-15 rocket plane and pins his eyes on the horizon, where, very shortly, he'll be arriving at 4,519mph - the fastest manned plane flight ever, even to this day. Former X-15 pilots included Neil Armstrong. After all, it did fly on the edge of space...

On their way back from the Moon, the astronauts of Apollo 10, stuffed inside their module, reach a cruising speed of 24,790mph: the fastest ever experienced by humans beings.

1970 // 630mph
Arguably the most successful of the rocket cars, the Blue Flame sets a new land speed record of 630mph over the flying kilometre at Bonneville, driven by American Gary Gabelich.

1971 // 51mph
Top speed of the world's fastest submarine, the Soviet K-222.

1972 // 11.2mph
Astronaut Gene Cernan sets a lunar speed record by driving the Apollo 17 rover to a stellar 11.2mph down a steep slope. Overall, he drives a total of 22 miles on the mission, many of them with Moondust in his face thanks to a broken fender that he later patches up with Moon maps.

1976 // 1,350mph (Pictured)
Two Concordes take off simultaneously, carrying paying passengers for the first time. One goes from Heathrow to Bahrain, the other from Paris to Rio. Both use a tonne of fuel just to get to their 250mph take-off speed. Both cruise at 60,000 feet. And only 20 planes are ever built.

Aussie boater Ken Warby sets the highest speed ever achieved on water.

1982 // 17,500mph (Pictured)
Space Shuttle Columbia returns from its first proper mission, accompanied by a fighter jet. The shuttle hits the atmosphere at a low-Earth orbit speed of 17,500mph, before gliding to a landing rate of approximately 213mph.

1987 // 201mph
The Ferrari F40 becomes the first road-legal car to go over the double ton, making it the fastest production car ever. It was the last Ferrari to be launched while Enzo was alive, and he even gave one to Nigel Mansell, his number one F1 driver at the time. Mansell later sold it, for considerable profit, through his own car dealership.

1992 // 213mph
The original Jaguar XJ220 concept had a V12 Le Mans engine. But the production car ends up with a 3.5-litre V6, still good enough to hit 213mph...

1993 // 231mph
Gordon Murray's McLaren F1 tops 231mph on the high-speed bowl in Nardò, Italy. It later goes on to 243mph on the 5.6-mile straight at VW's test track at Ehra-Lessien in Germany.

Andy Green becomes the first human to drive at supersonic speeds on land, in the Thrust SSC at Black Rock in Nevada.

1997 // 190mph (Pictured)
German rollerskate enthusiast Dirk Auer is towed behind a 911 GT2 at 190mph, making him the world's fastest in-line skater. He later appears on TG telly, clinging to an Aston Vantage.

1999 // 194mph
The Suzuki Hayabusa goes on sale with a top speed of 194mph - the last of the hyperbikes made before a gentleman's agreement between big manufacturers lowers maximum speeds.

2000 // 175mph
Biker Daniel Nicks becomes UK's quickest convicted speeder. Thoughtfully, he filmed himself doing 175mph, so cops had all the evidence they needed to jail him for six weeks.

2004 // 6,500mph
Hitting a peak speed of Mach 10 - that's around 6,500mph - NASA's unmanned X-43A scramjet is officially the fastest aircraft (although not spacecraft) ever recorded.

American Tony Schumacher runs the quarter-mile in 4.489secs, reaching 336.15mph in his US Army dragster: officially the fastest top fuel quarter-mile ever. Must be the fast name.

2005 // 253mph
The Bugatti Veyron goes on sale and immediately becomes the fastest road car in history, with a top speed of 253mph. And that's before the Super Sport model comes along...

2006 // 156mph
Simone Origone sets a speed-skiing world record.

2007 // 357mph
Top speed of TGV NO. 4402: the world's fastest railed train.

2008 // 670,589,779mph
The speed of a proton in the large hadron collider.

2010 // 268mph (Pictured)
Captain Slow rebuffs his dawdling reputation by piloting the Veyron Super Sport to 259mph, setting a new world record for the fastest production car ever... an honour he held for about 10 minutes, before Bugatti's own test driver, Pierre-Henri Raphanel, beat him with a 268mph run. Oh cock...

The American Sikorsky X2 flies at a claimed 299mph, making it the fastest helicopter ever. For this, we can thank coaxial rotors plus an upside-down tail section. And a following wind, probably.

2011 // 153mph
Mexican barefoot waterskier Fernando Iglesias grabs a tow-rope dangled from a helicopter. He holds on, setting a water-skiing world record speed of 153mph. The blisters must last for years...

2012 // 833mph (Pictured)
Keen Austrian balloonist Felix Baumgartner floats to the edge of space before jumping out and falling to Earth at 833mph, becoming the first human to break the sound barrier without a vehicle.

2014 // 822mph
Just two years after Baumgartner fell to earth, 57-year-old bespectacled Google Executive Alan Eustace attached himself to a balloon by a rope, ascended to 25 miles (compared to Baumgartner's 24) and detached himself with explosives, falling back to earth at 822mph. Not only did he break Baumgartner's altitude record and freefall distance, but he did so completely without fanfare.