Today in history - 1791

John Fitch was granted a United States patent for the steamboat (that's a drawing of the piston on the left). Four years earlier, on August 22, 1787, Fitch demonstrated the first successful steamboat, launching a forty-five-foot craft on the Delaware River in the presence of delegates from the Constitutional Convention. He went on to build a larger steamboat which carried passengers and freight between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey.