We're talking about the dawn of the roller coaster. It was in Paris in 1817. The first was basically a cart on tracks at the top of a simple ramp. Gravity did the rest.

The "first" roller coaster's age depends on whether you define it as a modern track-based ride or its historical progenitor. The oldest operating roller coaster in the world is the Great Scenic Railway in Melbourne, Australia, which opened in 1912, making it 114 years old in 2026. However, the true ancestors of the coaster are the "Russian Mountains"—massive ice slides reinforced with wood that appeared in St. Petersburg as early as the 17th century (roughly 350 years ago). The first patent for a modern track-based coaster was granted to LaMarcus Adna Thompson in 1885 for his "Switchback Railway," which opened at Coney Island a year earlier. Therefore, while the concept of a gravity-driven thrill ride is nearly four centuries old, the specialized mechanical "roller coaster" as we recognize it today has been a part of global culture for approximately 141 years.