Welcome aboard Pink Monorail. I'm your pilot, Michelle Viadolid, and next to me is my co-pilot

Noah Viadolid. Hey, everybody. In our series, Manufacturing the Magic, we're taking a slight detour

into the mechanics of magic, looking at how some of the things work

and the history of some of the rides and attractions that you see at theme parks.

Last time we talked about the Ferris wheel and carousels,

and this time we're talking about what my dad calls rolycoasters, the roller coaster.

PBS.org has a nice article called A Century of Screams that takes a brief look at the history

of the roller coaster. In Russia, in the 1700s, mountain workers would slide down frozen rivers

to get back down. It was fast and fun,

and I'm sure also happened elsewhere. But savvy Russians liked the sensation, so built massive

ice hills to first slide down in blankets and then, including Catherine the Great, make

carts with wheels to run up and down the hills. In the 19th century, cars ran on railroad tracks

to keep from falling off midway. Speaking of midway, there was a Russian hills attraction on the

Midway Plaisons at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, not too far from the Ferris wheel.

We do keep going back to the White City, don't we?

Mm-hmm. It was a nexus of sorts.

The term Russian mountains was used throughout Europe, but in Russia they were called

Americensky Gorki or American Mountains. The Russian mountains were built to about 70 to 80 feet

tall, with a 50-degree drop, and were supported by wooden supports covered with ice. Catherine the Great

was said to have been the first person to have a summer version with wooden carts instead of sled

in 1784. After the defeat of Napoleon, not Napoleon III who held those crazy expositions

but the original Napoleon at Waterloo, occupying Russia of

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