Historedia
Episode 1 of 2

Development of the Four-Stroke Engine

When
1876
Where
Deutz, Germany
Part of
Nicolaus Otto patents the four-stroke internal combustion engine

Otto and Langen created the first internal combustion engine that compressed the fuel mixture prior to combustion, achieving higher efficiency than previous designs.

By 1876, Otto and Langen succeeded in creating the first internal combustion engine that compressed the fuel mixture prior to combustion for far higher efficiency than any engine created to this time. This development marked a shift from atmospheric engines to compressed charge designs.

Sources

  1. Four-stroke engine Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-02
  2. Nicolaus Otto Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-14

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.