The gunpowder engine

In 1876, the year of the U.S. Centennial and Custer's loss at Little Big Horn, Nicolaus A. Otto, (who had worked with Daimler and Maybach) patented a compressed charge, four-stroke engine [U.S. Patent No. 194,047 on Aug. 14, 1877, on an application filed July 13, 1876 ]

About 200 years earlier, in the time period 1671-1680, Huygens and Papin had worked on a gunpowder engine, which used the ignition of gunpowder to move a piston in a cylinder.

Of note is a communication from Leibniz to Papin, as reported in wikipedia:


Leibniz tried to interest Papin in further development throughout, at one point noting

"Yet I would well counsel [you], Monsieur, to undertake more considerable things
which would force everyone to give their approbation and would truly change the state of things."




link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_engine