Jacques de Vaucanson's eighteenth-century automaton duck flapped, drank, ate grain, and appeared to excrete it, astonishing audiences even though the digestive trick was an illusion.

Italy's Villa Girasole was built on a circular rail system so the entire two-wing house could slowly turn around a central tower and face the sun.

New York's pneumatic mail network shot canisters beneath city streets, and postal lore records a cat being sent through a tube during an early demonstration before emerging alive.