What is the story of Nicolas cugnot?

Answer 1

here's an excerpt. get the whole article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas-Joseph_Cugnot .

Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (26 February 1725 - 2 October 1804) was a French inventor. He is believed to have built the first self-propelled mechanical vehicle. This claim is disputed by some sources, however, which suggest that Ferdinand Verbiest, as a member of a Jesuit mission in China, may have been the first to build a 'car' around 1672