The history part of the wikipedia unicycle entry has been nagging at me
for a while, earlier this week I gained access to the full OED (Oxford
English Dictionary) so I had a little look.
The earliest cited reference to unicycle is April 1869 for hemmings
unicycle velocipede (the yankee flyer), which is a design for something
we'd call a monocycle. However this predates the penny-farthing (late
1869 or early 1871 depending on source). Intresting it suggests that
unicycling might not come from wheelie-ing penny-farthings/Ordinaries.
So I asked a historian of my acquaintence where to go from here, this
is a bit of a work in progress, but we now have an antedate for
unicycle from 1860 (I need to check this) from a british magazine. More
excitingly there is a much earlier sighting of something that may be a
unicycle. A plate in the triumph of Maximillian apparently shows a
one-wheeled convayance. The Date ? A stunning 1516 !
I'll update this when more digging has been done & I know what I can
share & what is still copyrighted
--
anam
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