††A lift is a device for taking people or goods from one floor to another. The first lift ever recorded was built in 1743 for King Louis XIV of France. However, the first public lift was not unveiled until 1857 when Elisha Graves Otis fitted a lift into a New York store. The first lift in Europe was built at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. The invention of the lift allowed the development of the skyscraper from the 1880s. A lift usually consists of a box-like structure suspended by motor-driven cables. There are safety ratchets along the sides of the shaft. The first lifts were steam powered, but hydraulic and then electric lifts were common from the early 1900s.
