ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

James Rumsey

James Rumsey was a very smart man who lived a long time ago. He lived in a time when people didn't have cars or planes to travel fast, so they had to use boats to get around on the water.

James Rumsey was really good at building things, and he wanted to build a boat that could go faster than any other boat. So, he came up with an idea to make the boat move by using steam.

He figured out a way to heat up water in a big container, so it would turn into steam. And then he made a special kind of engine that could use the power of the steam to make the boat move.

When he had finished building his steam-powered boat, he took it out on the water to test it out. And it worked! His boat was able to go faster than any other boat on the water.

Lots of people were really impressed with what James Rumsey had done. They knew that his amazing invention was going to change the way people travelled on the water forever.