Slovenia has only a short stretch of the Adriatic seacoast and no great tradition of seafaring. But it was in Slovenia that a brilliant innovator came up with a device that changed the history of maritime transportation forever – and made the world a smaller place.

Josef Ressel was born in 1793 in what is now the Czech Republic. After completing his studies in Linz and the Imperial capital of Vienna, Ressel got a job in the state forestry service as an engineer, moving from town to town in the Hapsburg Empire. He was skilled at his job, and introduced a number of much-needed reforms to the industry, but his interest went far beyond forestry: He also had a passion for science in general and despite having a secure civil service position, he continued to work on several inventions.

It was when he lived in the Slovenian riverside town of Kostanjevica na Krki that Ressel conceived his most important invention: the modern ship propeller. He tested out his design son the gently flowing Krka River, which winds through Kostanjevica.

In 1921, Ressel moved to the port city of Trieste, but continued to work on his propeller design. Six years later, he was finally able to patent his invention. During a test of his propeller aboard the steamship Civetta in 1929, the ship’s steam tanks exploded, and fearful authorities temporarily barred Ressel from performing any more experiments. But after it emerged that his propeller design was not to blame, his invention took the world by storm. The world’s first successful ship propeller helped to usher in the age of the steamships, revolutionizing transportation and greatly reducing the distances between major ports.

Ressel continued working on his inventions. In the coming years, he invented the pneumatic mail delivery system, as well as cylindrical bearings, and worked on one of the first steam-powered automobiles.

Ressel died of typhus during a visit to Ljubljana in 1857. The grave of a man whose invention helped to bring the world closer together can be found in the city’s small Navje Cemetery, where many of Slovenia’s greatest historical figures are buried.