Most travel on some kind of road everyday, but how did they get there? Here's the long and winding history of roads and highways from Mesopotamia to modern day.
The story of the Welsh inventor who discovered Tarmac walesonline.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from walesonline.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Ever wondered where road markings came from? Wonder no more.
It’s the early days of the 20th century. The motor car is still a relatively new invention. Roads are rudimentary, despite sealed tar-paved roads first making an appearance in the Middle East in the 8th Century.
Roads continued to evolve over the centuries, but it was the advent of the motor car that saw a rapid rise in development and construction. Sealing the surface became commonplace, once British engineer Edgar Purnell Hooley patented his idea for tarmac in 1901.
While John Loudon McAdam invented the method of road surfacing that would become known as macadam, it was Hooley who added tar to the macadam aggregate mixture to create tarmac, the process creating a smooth surface and with reduced levels of dust and detritus. What those first sealed roads lacked, however, were any type of line markings.