What was the speed limit in 1865?
In 1865 the first speed limit was introduced in Britain - 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country.
Speed facts and facts about speed: how fast a thing can go when someone bothers to clock it.
16 facts on this shelf
In 1865 the first speed limit was introduced in Britain - 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country.
The fastest moving land snail, the common garden snail, has a speed of 0.0313 mph.
A raindrop falls at 600ft. per minute or 7 mph. A raindrop is round but appears to be oval because gravitation pulls on the front of the raindrop as it is falling.
Japan's Shinkansen "bullet train" opened in 1964, just before the Tokyo Olympics. It was the world's first high-speed rail line.
Many stretches of Germany's Autobahn have no general speed limit, though drivers are advised to stay around 130 km/h (81 mph).
The German Shorthaired Pointer was developed by mixing older German bird dogs and tracking hounds with the English Pointer, which added speed, elegance, and a sharper pointing instinct.
A Thoroughbred named Winning Brew set a Guinness World Record in 2008 by running about 44 miles per hour over a quarter mile, the fastest speed recorded for a racehorse.
The gentoo penguin is the fastest-swimming bird, reaching speeds of about 22 miles per hour underwater.
Despite their size, grizzly bears can run about 35 miles per hour in short bursts, faster than any human sprinter.
The British locomotive Mallard set the world speed record for a steam locomotive in 1938, reaching 126 miles per hour.
In 1906, a Stanley steam-powered car set a land speed record of about 127 miles per hour.
Signals in the fastest nerve fibers can travel at about 268 miles per hour.
The dwarf seahorse is considered the slowest fish, moving about five feet per hour.
The International Space Station travels at about 17,500 miles per hour.
Protons in the Large Hadron Collider travel at more than 99.99% of the speed of light.
Before anesthesia, surgeons were valued for speed, and some could amputate a leg in under three minutes.