August 5, 1888: The Journey of Bertha Benz

August 5, 1888: Bertha Benz, 39 years old, puts her 15-year-old son Eugen and her 13-year-old son Richard into a Benz Patent-Motorwagen Model III, and drives it from her home in Mannheim to Pforzheim, where her mother lived. Both cities were in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

The distance between them is 121 miles. This was, by far, the longest anyone had ever driven an automobile. Before this historic trip, motorized drives were merely very short trials, returning to the point of origin, made with assistance of mechanics.

She did it without telling her husband, Karl Benz, who invented the thing. She wanted to prove to her husband, who had failed to adequately consider marketing his invention, that the automobile in which they both had heavily invested would become a financial success, once it was shown to be useful to the general public; and to give her husband the confidence that his constructions had a future.

She left Mannheim around dawn, solving numerous problems along the way. She Bertha demonstrated her significant technical capabilities on this journey. With no fuel tank, and only a 4.5-litre supply of petrol in the carburetor, she had to find ligroin, the petroleum solvent needed for the car to run. The solvent was only available at apothecary shops, so she stopped in Wiesloch, at the city pharmacy, to purchase the fuel. This made the chemist in Wiesloch the world's first service station.

She cleaned a blocked fuel line with her hat pin, and used her garter as insulation material. A blacksmith had to help mend a chain at one point. When the wooden brakes began to fail, Benz visited a cobbler to install leather, making the world's first pair of brake linings. An evaporative cooling system was employed to cool the engine, making water supply a big worry along the trip. The trio added water to their supply every time they stopped.

The car's two gears were not enough to surmount uphill inclines, and Eugen and Richard often had to push the vehicle up steep roads. Mrs. Benz reached Pforzheim somewhat after dusk, notifying her husband of her successful journey by telegram. She drove back to Mannheim several days later.

The novel trip received a great deal of publicity, as she had sought. The drive was a key event in the technical development of the automobile. The pioneering couple introduced several improvements after Bertha's experiences. She reported everything that had happened along the way and made important suggestions, such as the introduction of an additional gear for climbing hills, and brake linings to improve brake-power. Her trip demonstrated to the burgeoning automotive industry that test drives were essential to their business.

Karl Benz lived until 1929, Bertha Benz until 1944, Richard Benz until 1955, Eugen Benz until 1958. In 2008, the Bertha Benz Memorial Route was established, on the route she drove, as part of the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

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August 5, 1888 was a Sunday. Since playing professional sports on Sunday was still illegal in many places, and baseball's National League wouldn't do it, anyway, there were only 3 games played, all in the American Association:

* The Brooklyn Bridegrooms -- so named because several of their players had gotten married in the previous off-season -- lost to the St. Louis Browns, 3-1 at the original Washington Park in Brooklyn. The Grays joined the NL in 1890, the Browns in 1892. The Browns would become the Cardinals in 1900, although their former name would be taken up by an AL team in 1902. The Bridegrooms would go through a few name changes, and became the Dodgers in 1911.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Kansas City Cowboys, 6-0 at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. This version of the Athletics folded after the 1890 season, though their name would be taken up by an AL team in 1901. This version of the Cowboys, not connected to the NL team that folded after the 1886 season, would only play in 1888.

* And the Cincinnati Red Stockings beat the Cleveland Blues, 6-5 at American Park in Cincinnati. The Red Stockings joined the NL and changed their name to the Reds, both in 1890. The Blues joined the NL and became the Cleveland Spiders, both in 1889, but were consolidated out of existence after the 1899 season.