Carousel

A carousel or merry-go-round is a traditional fairground attraction featuring a rotating circular platform with seats for riders—most commonly wooden or fiberglass horses mounted on vertical posts that move up and down to simulate galloping, accompanied by music.

In the UK, "merry-go-round" or "gallopers" is the traditional name, and these rides typically rotate clockwise. In the US and mainland Europe, "carousel" is the preferred industry term, and the rides almost always spin counterclockwise.

Below is a traditional steam-powered gallopers in Blists Hill Victorian Town in the UK, built by Thomas Walker in 1911.

Source Gaius Cornelius via Wikipedia

The earliest known record of a carousel device is a Byzantine etching from 500 AD which portrays riders swinging in baskets tied to a center pole.

The first fairground merry-go-round is referred to in records of an event in Philippolis, Turkey in 1620. 

In the early nineteenth century some advertisements claimed that riding the carousel was good for the circulation of blood.

The carousel developed from a training exercise used by knights and Ottoman/Arab horsemen in the 17th century, in which riders on horseback would toss balls to one another while circling — the Italian and Spanish word "garosello"/"carosella" (little battle) is the likely source of the name.

The world's oldest surviving operational carousel is the Hanau Carousel in Hanau-Wilhelmsbad State Park, Germany, built in 1780 and restored to working order in 2016.

The "brass ring" tradition, in which outer-row riders reach for a ring to win a free ride, grew out of ring-jousting practice and became a fairground staple from the 1870s to the early 1930s.

Carved carousel animals reached their artistic peak in America between 1880 and 1930, an era known as the "Golden Age of the Carousel," led by master carvers such as the Philadelphia Toboggan Company and Charles I. D. Looff.

The song "Carousel Waltz" by Richard Rodgers, the orchestral overture to the 1945 musical Carousel, is one of the most famous pieces of music associated with the ride, opening the show as the curtain rises on a working fairground carousel.