Editing Pedestrian (section)

==History==
{{See also|Pedestrianism}}
Throughout history, walking has been the main way people get around. The first humans to migrate from Africa, about 60,000 years ago, walked.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/ |title=Genographic Project |author=Dr. Spencer Wells |year=2005 |url-status=dead |access-date=28 March 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140325231342/https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/ |archive-date=25 March 2014 }}</ref> They walked along the coast of India to reach Australia. They walked across Asia to reach the Americas, and from Central Asia into Europe.

With the advent of cars at the beginning of the 20th century, the main story is that the cars took over, and "people chose the car", but there were many groups and movements that held on to walking as their preferred means of daily transport and some who organised to promote walking, and to counterbalance the widely-held view that often favoured cars, e.g. as related by [[Peter Norton (historian)|Peter Norton]].<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926819000956 |title= Persistent pedestrianism: urban walking in motor age America, 1920s–1960s|author=Peter D. Norton |journal= Urban History|year=2021 |volume= 48|issue= 2|pages= 266–289|doi= 10.1017/S0963926819000956|s2cid= 210507536|access-date=20 January 2021}}</ref>

During the 18th and 19th centuries, [[pedestrianism]] (walking) was non a popular spectator sport, just as [[equestrianism]] (riding) still is in places. One of the most famous pedestrians of that period was Captain [[Robert Barclay Allardice]], known as "The Celebrated Pedestrian", of [[Stonehaven]] in Scotland. His most impressive feat was to walk {{convert|1|mi}} every hour for 1000 hours, which he achieved between 1 June and 12 July 1809. This captured many people's imagination, and around 10,000 people came to watch over the course of the event. During the rest of the 19th century, many people tried to repeat this feat, including [[Ada Anderson]] who developed it further and walked a half-mile (800&nbsp;m) each quarter-hour over the 1000 hours.

Since the 20th century, interest in walking as a sport has dropped. [[Racewalking]] is still an [[Olympic Games|Olympic]] sport, but fails to catch public attention as it did. However major walking feats are still performed, such as the [[Land's End to John o' Groats]] walk in the United Kingdom, and the traversal of North America from coast to coast. The first person to walk around the world was [[Dave Kunst]] who started his walk traveling east from [[Waseca, Minnesota]] on 20 June 1970 and completed his journey on 5 October 1974, when he re-entered the town from the west. These feats are often tied to [[Charitable organization|charitable]] [[fundraising]] and are undertaken, among others, by celebrities such as Sir [[Jimmy Savile]] and [[Ian Botham]].