The German firm NSU builds the first working example of the rotary engine invented in 1924 by Felix Wankel

The Mini is launched, designed by Alec Issigonis, and becomes the best-selling British car of all time

The first prototype of the Hovercraft, designed by British engineer Christopher Cockerell, crosses the English Channel

The St Lawrence Seaway, a joint Canadian and US project, links the Great Lakes and the sea

The Trans-Canada Highway is completed, stretching some 5000 miles across the continent

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, linking Brooklyn and Staten Island, is the world's longest suspension bridge with a main span of 4260 feet (1298m)

The Anglo-French airliner Concorde makes its first supersonic test flight

The Humber Bridge crosses the Humber estuary in Britain, and is the world's longest suspension bridge with a main span of 4626 feet (1410m)

Work begins on China's ambitiious and controversial Three Gorges Dam project

France's President Mitterrand and the British queen Elizabeth II together open the tunnel under the English Channel

The Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, linking Shikoku and Honshu in Japan, creates a new record as the longest suspension bridge

The superjumbo Airbus A380 makes its first test flight from Toulouse

Structural work is completed on China's Three Gorges Dam, by far the largest hydroelectric dam in the world

An explosion destroys BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig, killing eleven people and starting a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico