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			Nicolaus August Otto Born Jun 10 1832 - Died Jan 26 1891 Gas-Motor Engine Gas-Motor Engine Patent Number(s) 365,701 Inducted 1981 Engineer Nicolaus August Otto invented the first practical alternative to the steam engine. Although an earlier patent by French engineer Alphonse de Rochas was found, Otto built the first practical and successful four-stroke cycle engine. Invention Impact Because of its reliability, efficiency, and relative quietness, more than 30,000 Otto cycle engines were built in the next 10 years. Inventor Bio Born in Holzhausen, Germany, Otto built his first gas engine in 1861. Then, in partnership with German industrialist Eugen Langen, they improved the design and won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition of 1867. In 1876, Otto, then a traveling salesman, chanced upon a newspaper account of the Lenoir internal combustion engine. Before year's end, Otto had built an internal combustion engine, utilizing a four-stroke piston cycle. Now called the 'Otto cycle' in his honor, the design called for four strokes of a piston to draw in and compress a gas-air mixture within a cylinder resulting in an internal explosion.