Creating the world’s first vessels of powered transportation was no joke. Several competitive inventors put everything on the line to be the first to build profitable steamboats. For most of them, the pursuit ended in failure. It was the most unlikely one – an American painter – who got the job done, and in the process, changed the course of world history.In this episode we’ll cover Denis Papin’s destroyed steamboat, the Marque de Jouffroy d'Abbans and his Pyroscaphe, William Symington and his Charlotte Dundas, the patent war between John Fitch and James Rumsey, and the life and times of Robert Fulton.