World Hisotry
Storyboard Text
- Gunpowder is a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal. All three of these materials combine together to create a rapid burn effect and they explode as a propellant. It is known as black and smokeless powder. It is the earliest known chemical explosive. There are two kinds of gunpowder, single and double based.
- Gunpowder was invented in China sometime during the first millennium AD (a period of 1000 years). Unlike paper and printing, the birth of gunpowder was accidental. It was first invented by alchemists while attempting to make a potion of immortality. They used gunpowder in the form of rockets. They put small stone cannonballs inside bamboo tubes and shot the cannonballs out by lighting, gunpowder at one end. The saltpeter in gunpowder provides the oxygen. The saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal allow stability.
- This explosive invention would become the base for almost every weapon used in war from fire arrows to rifles, and cannons to grenades. It affected the way battles were fought and borders were expanded throughout the Middle Ages. Battles became distant quicker and quicker.
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