History Steampunk / RealLife

* Even today steam engines[[note]]They're steam turbines instead of older, less efficient reciprocating piston engines, but they're still heat engines driven by steam.[[/note]] drive submarines, aircraft carriers and tremendous ships of war, and power Human Civilization. But we have found new ways to boil this steam, such as [[ILoveNuclearPower nuclear reactions]] or [[ThePowerOfTheSun concentrated solar energy]]. There's a reason they called the first Atomic Sub the Nautilus!

* What people hardly realize today is that fact that many weird inventions in Creator/JulesVerne's novels were based on actual technologies of his time, blown UpToEleven and therefore pretty hard to be put in practice. As ''Nautilus'' had been based on the RealLife ''Plongeur'' (1863-1872), which it resembled in description, but which also performed poorly (a top speed of barely 4 knots, while the battery-powered ''Nautilus'' was said to make ''50 knots''(!), Robur the Conqueror's 150mph automobile from 1904 ''Master Of The World'' had been based on RealLife ''Jamais Contente'' racecar from 1899 (again electrically-powered) and so on. And, strangely connecting SteamPunk and DieselPunk ages [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot together]] in RealLife, the British Great Western Railway ran from 1838 to 1892 high-speed trains on 2,140mm gauge tracks, prefigurating Adolf Hitler's plan of the 3,000mm gauge ''Breitspurbahn'' which was never built.

** The description of [[MadScientist Professor Schultze's]] 1,500mm caliber giant cannon from ''Literature/TheBegumsMillions'' (1879) matches [[UpToEleven a scaled-up version]] of the [[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Krupp_gun_-_Paris_1867.jpg Krupp 355mm breech-loader cannon able to launch 1000pdr shells]] shown at the 1867 Paris Universal Exhibition (where it raised the awe of the people).

* Most warships would use steam power well after WWII. It's just that after the replacement of triple expansion engines with the more efficient turbine engines, it became increasingly less obvious that steam was actually being as the power source.

* [[http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/stories/bionicarm.html Steampunk Prostethic arm]] works using rocket-style motors that run on steam. One of the stranger side effects this will have when in production is that the excess steam will be vented off as sweat.

* Even today steam engines[[note]]They're steam turbines instead of older, less efficient reciprocating piston engines, but they're still heat engines driven by steam.[[/note]] drive submarines, aircraft carriers and tremendous ships of war, and power Human Civilization. But we have found new ways to boil this steam, such as [[ILoveNuclearPower nuclear reactions]] or [[SolarPunk Solar Energy]]. There's a reason they called the first Atomic Sub the Nautilus!

* Even today steam engines[[note]]They're steam turbines instead of older, less efficient reciprocating piston engines, but they're still engines driven by steam.[[/note]] drive submersibles, tremendous ships of war, and power cities. But since the water is boiled by radioactive isotopes and not by coal or wood, we tend to call them "nuclear reactors" nowadays. There's a reason they called the first Atomic Sub the Nautilus!

* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GN_(car) GN car factory]] flourished during TheEdwardianEra and WorldWarI, building small cyclecars with [=JAP=] motorcycle engines and dog-chain transmissions ([[SchizoTech very similar to a bicycle derailleur gear]]). Then, [[TheNineties in the 1990s]], [[http://theoldmotor.com/?p=136808 Richard Scaldwell from Britain restored a GN racecar and adapted the V8 engine]], still made by JAP, from a friggin' airplane from 1908. All has been done with materials and hand tools used during the Steam Age and [[TheEdwardianEra Edwardian Age]], brass, copper, aluminum sheet and wood. It races modern WRC cars.

* There was a little bit of SteamPunk in AncientGreece. One of the most famous examples is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria Hero of Alexandria]] who built, among other things, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile a primitive steam engine]], a wind-powered organ, a vending machine that dispensed holy water, force pumps for fire engines, and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heron%27s_fountain a hydrostatically powered fountain]]. Some historians today actually debate why the Ancient Greeks did not have an Industrial Revolution; a leading theory is that the abundance of cheap slave labor and a corresponding shortage of easily obtainable fuel served as a disincentive.

* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GN_(car) GN car factory]] flourished during TheEdwardianEra and WorldWarI, building small cyclecars with [=JAP=] motorcycle engines and dog-chain transmissions ([[SchizoTech very similar to a bicycle derailleur gear]]). Then, [[TheNineties in the 1990s]], [[http://theoldmotor.com/?p=136808 Richard Scaldwell from Britain restored a GN racecar and adapted the V8 engine]], still made by JAP, from a friggin' airplane from 1908. All has been done with materials and hand tools used during the Steam Age and [[TheEdwardianEra Edwardian Age]], brass, copper, aluminum sheet and wood. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome It races modern WRC cars]].

* [[http://www.etsy.com/shop/clockworkzero Steampunk jewelry]] Although steampunk stuff is so ubiquitous on Etsy, and the term is so often misapplied to decidedly non-steampunk crafts, that [[http://www.regretsy.com/ Regretsy]] (often NSFW, so beware) runs a regular [[http://www.regretsy.com/category/not-remotely-steampunk/ "This Is Not Steampunk"]] feature.

* Like WWII, the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar had its share of outrageous tech that never actually saw combat. Of course, everyone knows about the ironclads, the first steam powered iron-plated warships. But some you might not have heard of: A Confederate dentist named Dr. R. Finley Hunt drew up plans for a steam-powered airplane. And Union Colonel Edward Wellman Serrell designed a steam-powered helicopter called the ''Reconoiterer''.