Rollercoasters

A roller coaster is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. People ride along the track in open cars, and the rides are often found in amusement parks and theme parks around the world.LaMarcus Adna Thompson obtained one of the first known patents for a roller coaster design in 1885, related to the Switchback Railway that opened a year earlier at Coney Island. The track in a coaster design does not necessarily have to be a complete circuit, as shuttle roller coasters demonstrate. Most roller coasters have multiple cars in which passengers sit and are restrained. Two or more cars hooked together are called a train. Some roller coasters, notably wild mouse roller coasters, run with single cars.

The oldest roller coasters are believed to have originated from the so-called "Russian Mountains", which were specially-constructed hills of ice, located in an area that would later become St. Petersburg. Built in the 17th century, the slides were built to a height of between 21 and 24 m (70 and 80 feet), consisted of a 50-degree drop, and were reinforced by wooden supports. Later, in 1784, the Empress Catherine the Great is said to have constructed a sledding hill in the gardens of her palace at Oranienbaum in St. Petersburg. The name Russian Mountains to designate a roller coaster is preserved in many Romance languages, such as the Spanish montaña rusa. However, the Russian term for roller coasters is "американские горки" ("amerikanskiye gorki"), which means "American mountains" in Russian.

Russian soldiers occupied Paris from 1815 through 1816, after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, and they may have introduced the Russian amusement of sledding down steep hills. In July 1817, a French banker named Nicolas Beaujon opened the Parc Beaujon, an amusement park on the Champs Elysees. Its most famous feature was the Promenades Aériennes or "Aerial Strolls." It featured wheeled cars securely locked to the track, guide rails to keep them on course, and higher speeds. The three-wheel carts were towed to the top of a tower, and then released to descend two curving tracks on either side. King Louis XVIII of France came to see the park, but it is not recorded if he tried the ride. Beaujon's park soon had half-a-dozen imitators, called "The French Mountains," the "Mountains of Belleville" the "Miniature Mountains", the "Swiss Mountains", the "Russian Mountains", and even "The Egyptian Mountains." but none lasted for long; real estate prices were soaring, the parks were developed. However, during the Belle Epoque they returned to fashion; in 1887 another French entrepreneur, Joseph Oller, the co-founder of the Moulin Rouge music hall, constructed the Montagnes Russes de Belleville, "Russian Mountains of Belleville" with two hundred meters of track laid out in a double-eight. He later enlarged the ride to four eight-shaped loops.

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