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  Gunpowder was probably used for the first time in Europe during the Battle of Crécy in 1346. Historians do not know if this invention was carried from China to Europe or in The Europeans invented it independently. The invention of gunpowder greatly changed the way men fought. The Medival knight could not defend himself against firearms and cannons. Knights were replaced by the foot soldier who carried firearms. Between 1670 and 1729 William Congreve developed rockets to use during wars. In the seventeenth century the gun was developed by the English and Dutch armies. media type="custom" key="7814219" =**Gunpowder, Artillery, and Weapons ** = ===**by Chris Freeman ** ===

Gunpowder was probably used for the first time in Europe during the Battle of Crécy in 1346. Historians do not know if this invention was carried from China to Europe or in The Europeans invented it independently. The invention of gunpowder greatly changed the way men fought. The Medival knight could not defend himself against firearms and cannons. Knights were replaced by the foot soldier who carried firearms. Between 1670 and 1729 William Congreve developed rockets to use during wars. In the seventeenth century the gun was developed by the English

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: [|navigation], [|search] Earliest known written formula for gunpowder, from the Chinese //[|Wujing Zongyao] // of 1044 AD. Gunpowder is considered one of [|Four Great Inventions of ancient China]. Around 1240 the Arabs acquired knowledge of saltpeter ("Chinese snow") from the East, perhaps through India. They knew of gunpowder soon afterward, and not long after learned about fireworks ("Chinese flowers") and rockets ("Chinese arrows").
 * [|Gunpowder] ** was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the invention of [|nitrocellulose], [|nitroglycerin] ,<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|smokeless powder] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|TNT] in the 19th century. Prior to the invention of gunpowder, many <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|incendiary and burning devices] had been used, including <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Greek fire].

[<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|hide] ]
 * ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**Contents** ==
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|1 Islamic and Hindu worlds]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|1.1 Islamic world]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|1.2 India]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|2 Europe]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|2.1 Mining]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|2.2 Canals]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|2.3 Tunnel construction]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|3 See also]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|4 Notes]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|5 References] ||

==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Islamic and Hindu worlds ** == ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Islamic world ** === The bronze <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Dardanelles Gun], cast in 1464 for defense of the<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Dardanelles strait] Further information: <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Inventions in the Muslim world] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Alchemy and chemistry in Islam] The Arabs acquired knowledge of gunpowder some time after 1240, but before 1280, by which time Hassan al-Rammah had written, in Arabic, recipes for gunpowder, instructions for the purification of saltpeter, and descriptions of gunpowder incendiaries.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[1] ] However, because al-Rammah attributes his material to "his father and forefathers", al-Hassan argues that gunpowder became prevalent in Syria and Egypt by "the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth". C. F. Temler interprets Peter, Bishop of Leon, as reporting the use of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|cannon] in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Seville] in 1248.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[2] ] Al-Hassan claims that "the first cannon in history"<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[3] ] was used by the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mamluks] against the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mongols] at the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Battle of Ain Jalut] in 1260;<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[4] ] Khan claims that it was invading <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mongols] who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[5] ] and cites <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mamluk] antagonism towards early riflemen in their infantry as an example of how gunpowder weapons were not always met with open acceptance in the Middle East.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[6] ] Similarly, the refusal of their <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Qizilbash] forces to use firearms contributed to the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Safavid] rout at <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Chaldiran] in 1514.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[6] ] Though the consensus is that gunpowder originated in China, others have suggested that gunpowder might possibly have been invented by the Arabs, by <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Roger Bacon], or by <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Berthold Schwarz] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[7] ] The general notion is that Arabic alchemy and chemistry did not know of saltpetre until the 13th century;<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[8] ] however, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Ahmad Y Hassan] argues that Arabs were purifying saltpetre by the 11th century<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[9] ] and that the earliest known military application of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|saltpetre] (known as //barud// in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Arabic] ) in the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Islamic world] is described in an Arabic manuscript written some time before 1225.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[10] ] A picture of a 15th century<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Andalusian] Arab <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|cannon] from the book //Al-izz wal rifa'a//. According to <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Johnson (2008] ), the Arabs "had developed the first real <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|gun], a bamboo tube reinforced with iron, which used a charge of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|black powder] to fire an arrow" some time before 1300; however, according to <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Chase (2003] :1), the Arabs only obtained firearms in the 14th century and all evidence points to Chinese origins. Hasan al-Rammah included 107 gunpowder recipes in his //al-furusiyyah wa al-manasib al-harbiyya// (//The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices//), 22 of which are for rockets. If one takes the median of 17 of these 22 compositions for rockets (75% nitrates, 9.06% sulphur and 15.94% carbon), it is almost identical with the reported ideal recipe (75% potassium nitrate, 10% sulphur, and 15% carbon).<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[4] ] Hasan al-Rammah also describes the purifying of saltpetre using the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|chemical processes] of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|solution] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|crystallization]. This was the first clear method for the purification of saltpetre.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[11] ] The earliest <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|torpedo] was also first described in 1270 by Hasan al-Rammah in //The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices//, which illustrated a torpedo running with a rocket system filled with explosive materials and having three firing points.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[12] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[13] ] The earliest surviving documentary evidence for the use of the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|hand cannon], considered the oldest type of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|portable firearm] and a forerunner of the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|handgun] , are from several Arabic manuscripts dated to the 14th century.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[14] ] Al-Hassan argues that these are based on earlier originals and that they report hand-held cannons being used by the Mamluks at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[4] ] ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] India ** === Further information: <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|History of Indian science and technology] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|List of Indian inventions] A 17th century forge-welded iron cannon, at <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Thanjavur] 's eastern entrance (India), built during the reign of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Raghunatha Nayak] (1600 - 1645 CE). <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Chinese] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|gunpowder] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|technology] is believed to have arrived in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|India] by the mid-14th century, but could have been introduced much earlier by the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mongols], who had conquered both <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|China] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|India] , perhaps as early as the mid-13th century. The unification of a large single <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mongol Empire] resulted in the free transmission of previously top-secret <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Chinese] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|technology] into a<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mongol] conquered <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|India]. Regardless, it is believed that the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mongols] used <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Chinese] gunpowder weapons during their invasion and subsequent conquest of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|India] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[15] ] It was written in the //Tarikh-i Firishta// (1606–1607) that the envoy of the Mongol ruler <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Hulegu Khan] was presented with a dazzling<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|pyrotechnics] display upon his arrival in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Delhi] in 1258 AD.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[16] ] As a part of an embassy to India by <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Timurid] leader Shah Rukh (1405–1447), 'Abd al-Razzaq mentioned naphtha-throwers mounted on elephants and a variety of pyrotechnics put on display.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[17] ] Firearms known as //top-o-tufak// also existed in the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Vijayanagara Empire] of India by as early as 1366 AD.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[16] ] From then on the employment of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|gunpowder warfare] in India was prevalent, with events such as the siege of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Belgaum] in 1473 AD by the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Sultan] Muhammad Shah Bahmani.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[18] ] The Indian <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Jaivana cannon] In //A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder//, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|James Riddick Partington] describes Indian rockets, mines and other means of gunpowder warfare:<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[19] ] > <span style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The Indian war rockets were formidable weapons before such rockets were used in Europe. They had bam-boo rods, a rocket-body lashed to the rod, and iron points. They were directed at the target and fired by lighting the fuse, but the trajectory was rather erratic. The use of mines and counter-mines with explosive charges of gunpowder is mentioned for the times of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Akbar] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Jahāngir]. An illustration from the //<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Akbarnama] //written by <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak] (1551-1602) depicts a gun in Akbar's court (bottom center). By the 16th century, Indians were manufacturing a diverse variety of firearms; large guns in particular, became visible in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Tanjore] ,<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Dacca], <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Bijapur] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Murshidabad] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[20] ] Guns made of bronze were recovered from <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Calicut] (1504) and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Diu] (1533).<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[21] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Gujarāt] supplied Europe saltpeter for use in gunpowder warfare during the 17th century.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[22] ] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Bengal] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mālwa] participated in saltpeter production.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[22] ] The Dutch, French, Portuguese, and English used <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Chāpra] as a center of saltpeter refining.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[23] ] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Fathullah Shirazi] (c. 1582), a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Persian] -<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Indian] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|polymath] and mechanical engineer who worked for <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Akbar the Great] in the<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mughal Empire], developed an early multi gun shot. As opposed to the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|polybolos] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|repeating crossbows] used earlier in<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|ancient Greece] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|China], respectively, Shirazi's rapid-firing gun had multiple <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|gun barrels] that fired <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|hand cannons] loaded with gunpowder.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[24] ] In //<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Encyclopedia Britannica (2008)] //, Stephen Oliver Fought & John F. Guilmartin, Jr. describe the gunpowder technology in 18th century India, with reference to the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|rocket artillery] used by the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Kingdom of Mysore] (as described in the //<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Fathul Mujahidin] //) and its influence on the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Congreve rocket] :<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[25] ] > <span style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Hyder Ali], prince of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mysore] , developed war rockets with an important change: the use of metal cylinders to contain the combustion powder. Although the hammered soft iron he used was crude, the bursting strength of the container of black powder was much higher than the earlier paper construction. Thus a greater internal pressure was possible, with a resultant greater thrust of the propulsive jet. The rocket body was lashed with leather thongs to a long bamboo stick. Range was perhaps up to three-quarters of a mile (more than a kilometre). Although individually these rockets were not accurate, dispersion error became less important when large numbers were fired rapidly in mass attacks. They were particularly effective against cavalry and were hurled into the air, after lighting, or skimmed along the hard dry ground. Hyder Ali's son, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Tippu Sultan], continued to develop and expand the use of rocket weapons, reportedly increasing the number of rocket troops from 1,200 to a corps of 5,000. In battles at <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Seringapatam] in 1792 and 1799 these rockets were used with considerable effect against the British. > <span style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The news of the successful use of rockets spread through Europe. In England <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Sir William Congreve] began to experiment privately. First, he experimented with a number of black-powder formulas and set down standard specifications of composition. He also standardized construction details and used improved production techniques. Also, his designs made it possible to choose either an explosive (ball charge) or incendiary warhead. ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Europe ** == Earliest picture of a European cannon, "De Nobilitatibus Sapientii Et Prudentiis Regum" Walter de Milemete, 1326. The <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|hussite] tarasnice from 15th century One theory of how gunpowder came to Europe is that it made its way along the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Silk Road] through the Middle East; another is that it was brought to Europe during the Mongol invasion in the first half of the 13th century,<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[26] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[27] ] or during the subsequent diplomatic and military contacts (see <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Franco-Mongol alliance] ). <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|William of Rubruck], an ambassador to the Mongols in 1254-1255, a personal friend of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Roger Bacon] , is also often designated as a possible intermediary in the transmission of gunpowder know-how between the East and the West.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[27] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[28] ] One of the earliest European references to gunpowder is found in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Roger Bacon] 's //Epistola de secretis operibus artiis et naturae// from 1267.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[27] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[29] ] The oldest written recipes for gunpowder in Europe were recorded under the name Marcus Graecus or Mark the Greek between 1280 and 1300.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[30] ] However, the very first time gunpowder was used in the Western world for military purposes was in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|1262], when king <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Alfonso X] of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Castile] set on siege the city of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Niebla] in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Spain] , whose Spanish-Arab inhabitants used some sort of primitive gun against the Spaniards. [//<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|citation needed] //] In 1250, the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Norwegian] //<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Konungs skuggsjá] // mentions, in its military chapter, the use of "coal and sulphur" as the best weapon for<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|ship-to-ship combat] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[31] ] Mixtures of coal and sulphur are not explosive, but can produce a slow-burning effect. In 1326, the earliest known European picture of a gun appeared in a manuscript by Walter de Milemete.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[32] ] On February 11 of that same year, the Signoria of Florence appointed two officers to obtain //canones de mettallo// and ammunition for the town's defense.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[33] ] A reference from 1331 describes an attack mounted by two Germanic knights on <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Cividale del Friuli], using gunpowder weapons of some sort.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[32] ] The French raiding party that sacked and burned <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Southampton] in 1338 brought with them a ribaudequin and 48 bolts (but only 3 pounds of gunpowder).<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[32] ] The <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Battle of Crécy] in 1346 was one of the first in Europe where cannons were used.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[34] ] In 1350, only four years later, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Petrarch] wrote that the presence of cannons on the battlefield was 'as common and familiar as other kinds of arms'.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[35] ] Western European handgun, 1380. 18 cm-long and weighing 1.04 kg, it was fixed to a wooden pole to facilitate manipulation. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Musée de l'Armée]. References to //gunnis cum telar// (guns with handles) were recorded in 1350, and by 1411 it was recorded that <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|John the Good], Duke of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Burgundy] , had 4000 <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|handguns] stored in his armory.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[36] ] However, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|musketeers] and musket-wielding infantrymen were despised in society by the traditional <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|feudal] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|knights] , even until the time of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Cervantes] (<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|1547] -<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|1616] AD).<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[6] ] At first even Christian authorities made vehement remarks against the use of gunpowder weapons, calling them blasphemous and part of the 'Black Arts'.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[37] ] By the mid-14th century, however, even the army of the Pope would be armed with artillery and gunpowder weapons.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[37] ] Around the late 14th century, European powdermakers began adding liquid to the constituents of gunpowder to reduce dust and with it the risk of explosion. The powdermakers would then shape the resulting paste of moistened gunpowder—known as mill cake—into "corns," or granules, to dry. Not only did "corned" powder keep better because of its reduced surface area, gunners also found that it was more powerful and easier to load into guns. The main advantage of corning is that the flame spreads between the granules, lighting them all, before significant gas expansion has occurred (when the gunpowder explodes). Without corning much of the powder away from the initial flame would be blown out of the barrel before it burnt. The size of the granules was different for different types of gun. Prior to corning, gunpowder would gradually demix into its constitutive components and was too unreliable for effective use in guns.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[38] ] The same granulation process is used nowadays in the pharmaceutical industry to ensure that each <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|tablet] contains the same proportion of active ingredient. Before long, powdermakers standardized the process by forcing mill cake through sieves instead of corning powder by hand.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[39] ] The first Western image of a battle with cannon, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Siege of Orleans] ,<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|1429]. The 15th through 17th century saw widespread development in gunpowder technology mainly in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Europe]. Advances in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|metallurgy] led to portable weapons and the development of hand-held <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|firearms] such as <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|muskets]. Cannon technology in Europe gradually outpaced that of China and these technological improvements transferred back to China through <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Jesuit] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|missionaries] who were put in charge of cannon manufacture by the late Ming and early <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Qing] emperors. Different shapes of corned gunpowder, each with its own function Shot and gunpowder for military purposes were made by skilled military tradesmen, who later were called //firemakers//, and who also were required to make fireworks for celebrations of victory or peace. During the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Renaissance], two European schools of pyrotechnic thought emerged, one in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Italy] and the other at <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Nürnberg] , <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Germany]. The Italian school of pyrotechnics emphasized elaborate fireworks, and the German school stressed scientific advancement. Both schools added significantly to further development of pyrotechnics, and by the mid-17th century fireworks were used for entertainment on an unprecedented scale in Europe, being popular even at resorts and public gardens.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[40] ] At the same time some military men were disguising gray in their beards by dusting them with gunpowder, the antiquary <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|John Aubrey] noted in his memoranda.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[41] ] ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Mining ** === Until the invention of explosives, large rocks could only be broken up by hard labour, or heating with large fires followed by rapid quenching. Black powder was used in civil engineering and mining as early as the 15th century.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[42] ] The earliest surviving record for the use of gunpowder in mines comes from Hungary in 1627.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[42] ] It was introduced to Britain in 1638 by German miners, after which records are numerous.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[43] ] Until the invention of the safety fuse by <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|William Bickford] in 1831, the practice was extremely dangerous.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[44] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[45] ] Another reason for danger was the dense fumes given off and the risk of igniting flammable gas when used in coal mines. ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Canals ** === The first time gunpowder was used on a large scale in civil engineering was in the construction of the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Canal du Midi] in Southern<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|France] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[45] ] It was completed in 1681 and linked the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mediterranean] sea with the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Atlantic] with 240 km of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|canal] and 100 locks. Another noteworthy consumer of blackpowder was the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Erie canal] in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|New York], which was 585 km long and took eight years to complete, starting in 1817.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[45] ] ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Tunnel construction ** === Black powder was also extensively used in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|railway] construction. At first railways followed the contours of the land, or crossed low ground by means of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|bridges] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|viaducts] ; but later railways made extensive use of cuttings and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|tunnels]. One 2400-ft stretch of the 5.4 mi <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Box Tunnel] on the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Great Western Railway] line between <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|London] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Bristol] consumed a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|tonne] of gunpowder per week for over two years.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[45] ] The 12.9 km long <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mont Cenis Tunnel] was completed in 13 years starting in 1857, but even with black powder progress was only 25 cm a day until the invention of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|pneumatic drills] sped up the work. The latter half of the 19th century saw the invention of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|nitroglycerin], <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|nitrocellulose] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|smokeless powders] , which soon replaced black powder in many applications.

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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[] Gunpowder is classified as a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|low explosive] because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|brisance]. Low explosives <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|deflagrate] at subsonic speeds. High explosives <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|detonate], producing a supersonic wave. Ignition of the powder packed behind a bullet must generate enough pressure to force it from the muzzle at high speed, but not enough to rupture the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|gun barrel]. Gunpowder is thus less suitable for shattering rock or fortifications, where high explosives such as <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|TNT] are preferred.
 * Gunpowder**, also called **black powder**, is a mixture of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|sulfur], <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|charcoal] , and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|potassium nitrate] . Gunpowder can be made just using potassium nitrate and charcoal (or alternatively without charcoal), but without the sulfur (or coal), the powder is not as strong. It burns rapidly, producing a volume of hot gas made up of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|carbon dioxide] , <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|water] , and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|nitrogen] , and a solid residue of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|potassium sulfide] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[1] ] Because of its burning properties and the amount of heat and gas volume that it generates, gunpowder has been widely used as a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|propellant] in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|firearms] and as a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|pyrotechnic composition] in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|fireworks] . The term //gunpowder// also refers broadly to any propellant powder. Modern firearms do not use the traditional gunpowder (black powder) described in this article, but instead use <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|smokeless powder] . <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Antique] firearms or replicas of antique firearms are often used with<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|black powder substitute].

[<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|hide] ]
 * ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">**Contents** ==
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|1 Characteristics]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|2 Combustion rate]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|2.1 Advantages]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|2.2 Disadvantages]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|2.3 Transportation]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|2.4 Energy content]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|3 Sulfur-free gunpowder]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|4 History]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|4.1 China]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|4.2 Middle East]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|4.3 Mainland Europe]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|4.4 British Isles]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|4.5 India]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|4.6 Indonesia]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|5 Manufacturing technology]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|6 Other uses]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|7 See also]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|8 Notes]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|9 References]
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|10 External links] ||

==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Characteristics ** == The term //Black powder// was coined in the late 19th century to distinguish prior gunpowder formulations from the new <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|smokeless powders] and semi-smokeless powders. Semi-smokeless powders featured bulk volume properties that approximated black powder in terms of chamber pressure when used in firearms, but had significantly reduced amounts of smoke and combustion products; they ranged in color from brownish tan to yellow to white. Most of the bulk semi-smokeless powders ceased to be manufactured in the 1920s.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[2] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[3] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[4] ] Black powder is a granular mixture of Potassium nitrate is the most important ingredient in terms of both bulk and function because the combustion process releases oxygen from the potassium nitrate, promoting the rapid burning of the other ingredients.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[5] ] To reduce the likelihood of accidental ignition by <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|static electricity], the granules of modern black powder are typically coated with <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|graphite] , which prevents the build-up of electrostatic charge. Charcoal does not consist of pure carbon; rather, it consists of partially pyrolyzed cellulose, in which the wood is not completely decomposed. The current standard composition for the black powders that are manufactured by <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|pyrotechnicians] was adopted as long ago as 1780. Proportions by weight are 75% potassium nitrate (known as saltpeter or saltpetre), 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[6] ] These ratios have varied over the centuries and by country, and can be altered somewhat depending on the purpose of the powder. For instance, power grades of black powder, unsuitable for use in firearms but adequate for blasting rock in quarrying operations, is called blasting powder rather than gunpowder with standard proportions of 70% nitrate, 14% charcoal, and 16% sulfur; blasting powder may be made with the cheaper <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|sodium nitrate] substituted for potassium nitrate and proportions may be as low as 40% nitrate, 30% charcoal, and 30% sulfur.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[7] ] ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Combustion rate ** == The burn rate of black powder can be changed by corning. Corning first compresses the fine black powder meal into blocks with a fixed density (1.7 g/cm³). The blocks are then broken up into granules. These granules are then sorted by size to give the various grades of black powder. In the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|United States], standard grades of black powder run from the coarse Fg grade used in large bore rifles and small cannons, through FFg (medium and smallbore arms such as muskets and fusils), FFFg (smallbore rifles and pistols), and FFFFg (extreme small bore, short pistols and most commonly for priming <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|flintlocks] ). In the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|United Kingdom], the gunpowder grains are categorised by mesh size: the BSS <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|sieve mesh size] , being the smallest mesh size on which no grains were retained. Recognised grain sizes are Gunpowder G 7, G 20, G 40, and G 90. A simple, commonly cited, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|chemical equation] for the combustion of black powder is 2 <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|KNO3] + <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|S] + 3 <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|C] → <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|K2S] + <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|N2] + 3 <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|CO2]. A more accurate, but still simplified, equation is<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[8] ] 10 KNO3 + 3 S + 8 C → 2 <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|K2CO3] + 3 <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|K2SO4] + 6 CO2 + 5 N2. The burning of gunpowder does not take place as a single reaction, however, and the byproducts are not easily predicted. One study's results showed that it produced (in order of descending quantities): 55.91% solid products: potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, potassium sulfide, sulfur, potassium nitrate, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|potassium thiocyanate], carbon, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|ammonium carbonate]. 42.98% gaseous products: carbon dioxide, nitrogen, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|carbon monoxide], <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|hydrogen sulfide] , hydrogen, methane, 1.11% water. Black powder made with sodium nitrate tends to be <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|hygroscopic], unlike black powders made from <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|saltpeter]. (In this article, "saltpeter"--also spelled "saltpetre"--means <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|potassium nitrate] and not any of the other nitrates that are also sometimes called "saltpeter.") Because black powder made with saltpeter is less affected by moisture in the air, it can be stored unsealed for centuries without degradation if it is kept dry. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Muzzleloaders] have been known to fire after hanging on a wall for decades in a loaded state, provided they remained dry. By contrast, black powder made with sodium nitrate must be sealed from the moisture in the air to remain stable for long periods. ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Advantages ** === In firearms, black powder allows loading by volumetric measure, whereas smokeless powder requires precise measuring of the charge by weight to prevent damage due to overloading, though damage by overloading is still possible with black powder. In quarrying, high explosives are generally preferred for shattering rock. However, because of its low <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|brisance], black powder causes fewer fractures and results in more usable stone compared to other explosives, making black powder useful for blasting monumental stone such as <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|granite] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|marble]. Black powder is well suited for <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|blank rounds], <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|signal flares] , <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|burst charges] , and rescue-line launches. Black powder is also used in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|fireworks] for lifting shells, in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|rockets] as fuel, and in certain <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|special effects]. ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Disadvantages ** === Black powder has a low <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|energy density] compared to modern "smokeless" powders, and thus to achieve high energy loadings, large amounts of black powder are needed with heavy projectiles. In military applications black powder also produces thick smoke as a byproduct, which may give a soldier's location away to an enemy observer. The smoke may also impair aiming for additional shots. Combustion converts less than half the mass of black powder to gas. The rest ends up as a thick layer of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|soot] inside the barrel. In addition to being a nuisance, the residue from burnt black powder is <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|hygroscopic] and with the addition of moisture absorbed from the air, this residue forms a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|caustic] substance. The soot contains <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|potassium oxide] or <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|sodium oxide] that turns into <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|potassium hydroxide], or <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|sodium hydroxide] , which will corrode <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|wrought iron] or <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|steel] gun barrels. Black powder arms must be well cleaned both inside and out to remove the residue. The <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Matchlock] musket or pistol (an early gun ignition system), as well as the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|flintlock] would often be unusable in wet weather, due to powder in the pan being exposed and dampened. Because of this unreliability, soldiers carrying muskets, known as <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|musketeers], were armed with additional weapons such as swords or pikes. The <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|bayonet] was developed to allow the musket to be used as a spear, thus eliminating the need for the soldier to carry a secondary weapon. ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Transportation ** === The <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|UN] Model Regulations on the Transportation of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Dangerous Goods] and national transportation authorities, such as <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|United States Department of Transportation], have classified Gunpowder (black powder) as a //Group A: Primary explosive substance// for shipment because it ignites so easily. Complete manufactured devices containing black powder are usually classified as //Group D: Secondary detonating substance, or black powder, or article containing secondary detonating substance//, such as firework, class D<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|model rocket] engine, etc., for shipment because they are harder to ignite than loose powder. As explosives, they all fall into the category of Class 1. ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Energy content ** === Gunpowder contains 3 <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|mega] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|joules] per <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|kilogram], and contains its own oxidant. For comparison, the energy density of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|TNT] is 4.7 megajoules per kilogram, and the energy density of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|gasoline] is 47.2 megajoules per kilogram.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[9] ] ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Sulfur-free gunpowder ** == The development of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|smokeless powders], such as <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Cordite] , in the late 19th century created the need for a spark-sensitive <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|priming charge] , such as gunpowder. However, the sulfur content of traditional gunpowders caused <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|corrosion] problems with Cordite Mk I and this led to the introduction of a range of sulfur-free gunpowders, of varying grain sizes.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[10] ] They typically contain 70.5 parts of saltpetre and 29.5 parts of charcoal.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[10] ] Like black powder, they were produced in different grain sizes. In United Kingdom, the finest grain was known as //sulfur-free mealed powder// (//SMP//). Coarser grains were numbered as sulfur-free gunpowder (SFG n): 'SFG 12', 'SFG 20', 'SFG 40' and 'SFG 90', for example; where the number represents the smallest BSS <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|sieve mesh size] on which no grains were retained. The main purpose of sulfur in gunpowder is to decrease the ignition temperature. A sample reaction for sulfur-free gunpowder would be 4 KNO3 + C7H8O → 3 K2CO3 + 4 CO2 + 2 H2O + 3 N2 ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] History ** == Early Chinese rocket A Mongol bomb thrown against a charging <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Japanese] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|samurai] during the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mongol invasions of Japan] after founding the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Yuan Dynasty], 1281. Main article: <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|History of gunpowder] Gunpowder was invented, documented, and used in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|ancient] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|China] where the Chinese military forces used gunpowder-based weapons technology (i.e. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|rockets], <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|guns] , <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|cannons] ), and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|explosives] (i.e. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|grenades] and different types of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|bombs] ) against the<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mongols] when the Mongols attempted to invade and breach the Chinese city fortifications on the northern borders of China. After the Mongols conquered China and founded the Yuan Dynasty, they used the Chinese gunpowder-based weapons technology in their invasion of Japan. Chinese also used gunpowder to fuel <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|rockets]. However, it has also been argued that, like the wheel, gunpowder was "coinvented" or "co-discovered" prior to, simultaneously or slightly after the Chinese, by cultures separated from the Chinese by vast distances, with minimal direct contact between one another.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[11] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[12] ] A major problem for academic study is ready access to original sources. Moreover, it is difficult to accurately translate original sources, especially medieval Chinese texts which employ metaphor to describe unexplained phenomena, into contemporary scientific language with its rigidly defined terminology. The difficulty in translation gives rise to errors or loose interpretation bordering on <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|artistic licence] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[13] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[14] ] An evaluation of all arguments and thorough <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|literature review] is beyond the scope of this article. Rather than take a position, the article will present all arguments to the reader. ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] China ** === Further information: <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Four Great Inventions of ancient China], <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|List of Chinese inventions] , and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|History of science and technology in China] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Chinese] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Ming Dynasty] (1368-1644 AD)<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|matchlock] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|firearms] Saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and there is strong evidence of the use of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|saltpeter] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|sulfur] in various largely <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|medicinal] combinations.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[15] ] A Chinese alchemical text dated 492 AD noted saltpetre burnt with a purple flame, providing a practical and reliable means of distinguishing it from other inorganic salts, thus enabling alchemists to evaluate and compare purification techniques.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[16] ] The Chinese word for "gunpowder" is <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Chinese] : 火药/火藥; <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|pinyin] : //huŏ yào// /xuou yɑʊ/, which literally means "Fire Medicine."<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[17] ] The first reference of gunpowder is possibly the passage of the //Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe//, a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Taoist] text tentatively dated to the mid-9th century AD:<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[16] ] > <span style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Some have heated together <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|sulfur], <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|realgar] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|saltpeter] with <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|honey] ; smoke and flames result, so that their hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[18] ] By the 9th century <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Taoist] monks or <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|alchemists] searching for an <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|elixir of immortality] had serendipitously stumbled upon gunpowder.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[19] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[20] ] The Chinese "<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Wu Ching Tsung Yao] ", written by Tseng Kung-Liang in 1044, provides encyclopedia references to a variety of mixtures which included petrochemicals, as well as garlic and honey. A slow match for flame throwing mechanisms using the siphon principle and for fireworks and rockets are mentioned. Academics argue the Chinese wasted little time in applying gunpowder to warfare, and they produced a variety of gunpowder weapons, including flamethrowers, rockets, bombs, and land mines, before inventing guns as a projectile weapon.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[21] ] ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Middle East ** === Main articles: <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Inventions in the Islamic world] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Alchemy and chemistry in Islam] The <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Sultani Cannon], a very heavy bronze <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|muzzle-loading] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|cannon] of type used by <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Ottoman Empire] in the<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|siege of Constantinople] , 1453 AD. The <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Arabs] acquired knowledge of gunpowder some time after 1240 AD, but before 1280 AD, by which time Hasan al-Rammah had written, in Arabic, recipes for gunpowder, instructions for the purification of saltpeter, and descriptions of gunpowder incendiaries.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[22] ] However, because al-Rammah attributes his material to "his father and forefathers", <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|al-Hassan] argues that gunpowder became prevalent in Syria and Egypt by "the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth". A picture of a 15th century<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Granadian] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|cannon] from the book //Al-izz wal rifa'a//. Al-Hassan claims that in the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Battle of Ain Jalut] of 1260 AD, the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mamluks] used against the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mongols] in "the first <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|cannon] in history" gunpowder formulæ with near-identical ideal composition ratios for explosive gunpowder.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[23] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[24] ] However, Khan claims that it was invading <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mongols] who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[25] ] and cites <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mamluk] antagonism towards early musketeers in their infantry as an example of how gunpowder weapons were not always met with open acceptance in the Middle East.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[26] ] Similarly, the refusal of their <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Qizilbash] forces to use firearms contributed to the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Safavid] rout at <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Chaldiran] in 1514.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[26] ] The earliest surviving documentary evidence for the use of the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|hand cannon], considered the oldest type of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|portable firearm] and a forerunner of the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|handgun] , are from several Arabic manuscripts dated to the 14th century.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[27] ] Al-Hassan argues that these are based on earlier originals and that they report hand-held cannons being used by the Mamluks at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[24] ] Hasan al-Rammah included 107 gunpowder recipes in his text //al-Furusiyyah wa al-Manasib al-Harbiyya// (//The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices//), 22 of which are for rockets. If one takes the median of 17 of these 22 compositions for rockets (75% nitrates, 9.06% sulfur, and 15.94% carbon), it is near identical with the modern reported ideal gunpowder recipe of 75% potassium nitrate, 10% sulfur, and 15% carbon, although this was already known to <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Roger Bacon] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[24] ] ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Mainland Europe ** === C. F. Temler interprets Peter, Bishop of Leon, as reporting the use of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|cannon] in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Seville] in 1248 AD.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[28] ] In <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Norwegian] the //<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Konungs skuggsjá] // of 1250 AD mentions in its military chapter, the use of two key ingredients: "coal and sulfur" as the best weapons for <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|ship-to-ship combat] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[29] ] Dated around 1257 AD, among the earliest extant written references to gunpowder in Europe, are <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Roger Bacon] 's texts //Epistola//, "//De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae et de Nullitate Magiae//," dated variously between 1248<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[30] ] and 1257,<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[31] ] he states:<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[30] ] > <span style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">We can, with saltpeter and other substances, compose artificially a fire that can be launched over long distances... By only using a very small quantity of this material much light can be created accompanied by a horrible fracas. It is possible with it to destroy a town or an army ... In order to produce this artificial lightning and thunder it is necessary to take saltpeter, sulfur, and Luru Vopo Vir Can Utriet. Cannons forged in 1667 AD at the Fortín de La Galera, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Nueva Esparta], Venezuela. The last part has been interpreted as an elaborate coded anagram for the quantities needed, but other academics holding contrary viewpoints argue this may be erroneous transcription of a passage read with much difficulty.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[32] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[33] ] Some authors maintain that around 1261, Roger did develop the ideal formula for gunpowder (75% of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|saltpeter], 15% of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|carbon] and 10% of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|sulfur] )<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[34] ] In the //Opus Maior// of 1267 AD, Bacon describes <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|firecrackers] :<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[32] ] > <span style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">a child’s toy of sound and fire and explosion made in various parts of the world with powder of saltpetre, sulfur and charcoal of hazelwood.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[35] ] The //Liber Ignium//, or //Book of Fires//, attributed to Marcus Graecus, is a collection of incendiary recipes, including some gunpowder recipes. Partington dates the gunpowder recipes to approximately 1300.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[36] ] One recipe for "flying fire" (//ingis volatilis//) involves saltpetre, sulfur, and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|colophonium], which, when inserted into a reed or hollow wood, "flies away suddenly and burns up everything." Another recipe, for artificial "thunder", specifies a mixture of one pound native sulfur, two pounds linden or willow charcoal, and six pounds of saltpeter.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[37] ] Another specifies a 1:3:9 ratio.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[37] ] Some of the gunpowder recipes of //De Mirabilibus Mundi// of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Albertus Magnus] are identical to the recipes of the //Liber Ignium//, and according to Partington, "may have been taken from that work, rather than conversely."<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[38] ] Partington suggests that some of the book may have been compiled by Albert's students, "but since it is found in thirteenth century manuscripts, it may well be by Albert."<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[38] ] Albertus Magnus died in 1280 AD. A common German <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|folk-tale] is of the German priest/monk named <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Berthold Schwarz] who independently invented gunpowder, thus earning it the German name //Schwarzpulver// or in English //Schwarz's powder//. Schwarz is also German for <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|black] so this <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|folk-tale], while likely containing elements of truth, is considered problematic. The major and uniquely European advancement of gunpowder was <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|corning] : the addition of moisture to the gunpowder to form regular greater <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|grains] which much increased the reliability and consistency of gunpowder. This occurred around the late 15th century CE, as European powdermakers began adding moisture to gunpowder to reduce dust and with it the risk of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|dust explosion]. The powdermakers would then shape the resulting mush of dampened gunpowder, known as mill cake, into corns, or grains, to dry. The new "corned" powder remained potent and more reliable to store as it was far less <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|hygroscopic] than the former powder (due to net reduced surface area). Gunners also found it was more powerful and easier to load measures of it into guns. An advantage of corning is that the combustion flame spreads evenly between the grains, thus igniting all grains before significant gas expansion (when the gunpowder actually "explodes"). Gunpowder not corned results in much unburnt powder blown away from the ignition flame and combustion chamber due to localized miniature gas expansions within the powder. Europeans innovated by experimentation and discovering different kernel sizes combusted at differing rates, and thus were more suitable for one gun or for another. Molerus notes that without corning, gunpowder, like all dry mixtures, has a tendency to gradually separate back to its components and thus was too unreliable for effective use in guns as mixtures would not be of uniform composition, noting the use of corning technique is commonplace in the modern <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|pharmaceutical industry] to ensure uniform proportions of active ingredients for each <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|tablet] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[39] ] Shot and gunpowder for military purposes were made by skilled military tradesmen, later called //firemakers//, and were also required to craft fireworks for celebrations of victory or peace. During the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Renaissance], two European schools of pyrotechnic thought emerged, one in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Italy] and the other at <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Nuremberg] , <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Germany]. The Italian school of pyrotechnics emphasized elaborate fireworks, and the German school stressed scientific advancement. Both schools added significantly to further development of pyrotechnics, and by the mid-17th century fireworks were used for entertainment on an unprecedented scale in Europe, being popular even at resorts and public gardens.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[40] ] By 1788, as a result of the reforms for which <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Lavoisier] was mainly responsible, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|France] had become self-sufficient in saltpeter, and its gunpowder had become not only widely considered the best in Europe but more importantly, inexpensive.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[41] ] The introduction of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|smokeless powder] in the late 19th century led to the contraction of the gunpowder industry. ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] British Isles ** === The old Powder or Pouther magazine dating from 1642 AD, built by order of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|James VI] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Irvine], <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|North Ayrshire] , Scotland. Gunpowder production in Britain appears to have started in the mid 13th century AD with the aim of supplying <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|The English Crown] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[42] ] Records show that gunpowder was being made, in England, in 1346, at the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Tower of London] ; a powder house existed at the Tower in 1461; and in 1515 three King's gunpowder makers worked there.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[42] ] Gunpowder was also being made or stored at other Royal castles, such as <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Portchester]. By the early 14th century, according to N.J.G. Pounds's study //The Medieval Castle in England and Wales,// many <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|English] castles had been deserted and others were crumbling. Their military significance faded except on the borders. Gunpowder had made smaller castles useless.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[43] ] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Henry VIII of England] was short of gunpowder when he invaded France in 1544 AD and England needed to import gunpowder via the port of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Antwerp] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[42] ] The <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|English Civil War], 1642-1645 AD, led to an expansion of the gunpowder industry, with the repeal of the Royal Patent in August 1641.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[42] ] Two British physicist, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Andrew Noble] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Frederick Abel], worked to improve the properties of blackpowder during the late 19th century. This formed the basis for the Noble-Abel gas equation for <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|internal ballistics] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[44] ] The introduction of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|smokeless powder] in the late 19th century led to a contraction of the gunpowder industry. After the end of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|World War I], the majority of the United Kingdom gunpowder manufacturers merged into a single company, "Explosives Trades limited"; and number of sites were closed down, including those in Ireland. This company became Nobel Industries Limited; and in 1926 became a founding member of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Imperial Chemical Industries]. The <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Home Office] removed gunpowder from its list of //Permitted Explosives//; and shortly afterwards, on 31 December 1931, the former <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Curtis & Harvey] 's <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Glynneath] gunpowder factory at<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Pontneddfechan], in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Wales] , closed down, and it was demolished by fire in 1932.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[45] ] gun powder storing barrels at<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Martello tower] in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Point Pleasant Park] The last remaining gunpowder mill at the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey] was damaged by a German <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|parachute mine] in 1941 and it never reopened.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[10] ] This was followed by the closure of the gunpowder section at the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Royal Ordnance Factory] ,<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|ROF Chorley], the section was closed and demolished at the end of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|World War II] ; and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|ICI Nobel] 's <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Roslin] gunpowder factory which closed in 1954.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[10] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[46] ] This left the sole United Kingdom gunpowder factory at ICI Nobel's <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Ardeer] site in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Scotland] ; it too closed in October 1976.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[10] ] Since then gunpowder has been imported into the United Kingdom. In the late 1970s / early 1980s gunpowder was bought from eastern Europe, particularly from what was then the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|East Germany] and former <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Yugoslavia]. ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] India ** === A 17th century <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Tanjore Nayak kingdom] 's forge-welded iron cannon, at <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Thanjavur] 's eastern entrance (India). Gunpowder had arrived in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|India] by the mid-14th century, perhaps introduced by the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mongols] as early as the mid-13th century.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[47] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[48] ] It was written in the //Tarikh-i Firishta// (1606–1607) that the envoy of the Mongol ruler <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Hulegu Khan] was presented with a dazzling<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|pyrotechnics] display upon his arrival in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Delhi] in 1258 CE.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[49] ] Firearms known as //top-o-tufak// also existed in the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Vijayanagara Empire] of India by as early as 1366 AD.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[49] ] From then on the employment of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|gunpowder warfare] in India was prevalent, with events such as the siege of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Belgaum] in 1473 AD by <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Sultan] Muhammad Shah Bahmani.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[50] ] By the 16th century, Indians were manufacturing a diverse variety of firearms; large guns in particular, became visible in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Tanjore] ,<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Dacca], <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Bijapur] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Murshidabad] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[51] ] Guns made of bronze were recovered from <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Calicut] (1504 AD) and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Diu] (1533 AD).<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[52] ] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Gujarāt] supplied Europe saltpeter for use in gunpowder warfare during the 17th century.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[53] ] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Bengal] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mālwa] participated in saltpeter production.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[53] ] The Dutch, French, Portuguese, and English used <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Chāpra] as a center of saltpeter refining.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[54] ] War rockets, mines and counter mines using gunpowder were used in India by the time of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Akbar] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Jahangir] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[52] ] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Fathullah Shirazi] (c. 1582), a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Persian] -<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Indian] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|polymath] and mechanical engineer who worked for <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Akbar the Great] in the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Mughal Empire], invented an <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|autocannon] , early multi-shot gun. As opposed to the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|polybolos] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|repeating crossbows] used earlier in<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|ancient Greece] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|China], respectively, Shirazi's rapid-firing gun had multiple <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|gun barrels] that fired <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|hand cannons] loaded with gunpowder.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[55] ] Both <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Hyder Ali] and his son <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Tippu Sultan] used black powder technology in iron-cased war rockets with considerable effect against the British, which inspired the development of the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Congreve rocket] .<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[56] ] ===<span style="font-size: 1.1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Indonesia ** === The <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Javanese] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Majapahit] Empire is argued to have grown to span most of modern day <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|ASEAN] due to its Javanese mastery of bronze-smithing and unique within the immediate region to the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Majapahit] court, the technology and mass manufacture (via cottage industries which contributed to a central <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|arsenal] ). Documentary and archeological evidence indicate that <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Arab] or <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Indian] traders introduced gunpowder, gonnes, <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|muskets], <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|blunderbusses] , and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|cannon] to the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Javanese] , <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Acehnese] , and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Batak] via long established commercial <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|trade routes] around the early to mid 14th century CE.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[57] ] Early European aggressors of Portugal and Spain were unpleasantly surprised and outgunned on many occasions.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[58] ] The resurgent <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Singhasari] Empire overtook <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Sriwijaya] and later emerged as the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Majapahit] who rigidly established fire-arms and cannonade as a feature of warfare.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[59] ] Circa 1540 CE the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Javanese] always alert for new weapons found the newly arrived Portuguese weaponry superior to that of the locally made variants. The Javanese bronze breech-loaded swivel-gun, erroneously termed the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|lantaka], more correctly known as a meriam was used ubiquitously by the Majapahit navy and unfortunately pirates and rival lords. The demise of the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Majapahit] empire and the flight of disaffected skilled bronze cannon-smiths to <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Brunei], modern <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Sumatra] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Malaysia] , and the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Philippines] lead to near universal use of the swivel-gun, especially on trade vessels to protect against prevalent marauding pirates, especially in the<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Makassar Strait]. A <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Chinese] pirate or commercial <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|shipwreck] site unearthed a double-ended <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|swivel gun], which enabled swift firing: one barrel would fire whiles its opposite would be reloaded, though this is a rare and unique piece. Other archeological finds have unearthed some triple-barrel and some double-barrel swivel-guns, which were not widely duplicated. The saltpetre harvesting was recorded by Dutch and German travelers as being common to even the smallest villages and collected from the decomposition process of large goat dung hills specifically piled for collection this saltpetre, a most unpleasant job. Saltpetre must be remembered by today's reader as being a key food preservative agent in a period of no refrigeration. The Dutch punishment for possession of unpermitted gunpowder appears to have been amputation.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[60] ] Ownership and manufacture of gunpowder was later prohibited by the colonial <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Dutch] occupiers.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[57] ] Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, from his //The History of Java// relates the process of powder manufacture, perhaps of noteworthy relevance considering at the time it was a military-related craft and not always recorded: > <span style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">the best sulphur is supplied from a crater from a mountain near the straits of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Bali] ...in <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|caverns] in irregularly formed beds of earth, which being impregnated with the native nitre, saturated with the evacuation of the enumerous bats that haunt these caves is mixed with a compound of wood ashes, supplies the liquid that is boiled in large kettles and afterward left to cool and crystallize.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[59] ] ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Manufacturing technology ** == Edge-runner mill in a restored mill, at<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Eleutherian Mills] For the most powerful black powder <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|meal], a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|wood] <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|charcoal] is used. The best wood for the purpose is Pacific <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|willow] ,<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[61] ] but others such as <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|alder] or <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|buckthorn] can be used. The ingredients are mixed as thoroughly as possible. This is achieved using a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|ball mill] with non-sparking grinding apparatus (e.g., <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|bronze] or <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|lead] ), or similar device. Historically, a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|marble] or <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|limestone] edge runner mill, running on a limestone bed was used in Great Britain; however, by the mid 19th century CE this had changed to either an iron shod stone wheel or a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|cast iron] wheel running on an iron bed.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[6] ] The mix is sometimes dampened with <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|alcohol] or water during grinding to prevent accidental ignition. Around the late 14th century CE, European powdermakers began adding damp to the constituents of gunpowder to reduce dust and with it the risk of explosion.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[62] ] The powdermakers would then shape the resulting paste of dampened gunpowder, known as mill cake, into corns, or grains, to dry. Not only did corned powder keep better because of its reduced surface area, gunners also found that it was more powerful and easier to load into guns. Before long, powdermakers standardized the process by forcing mill cake through sieves instead of corning powder by hand. During the 18th century gunpowder factories became increasingly dependent on mechanical energy.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[63] ] ==<span style="font-size: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;">** [<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|edit] ] Other uses ** == Besides its use as an explosive, gunpowder has been occasionally employed for other purposes; after the <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Battle of Aspern-Essling] (1809), the surgeon of the Napoleonic Army <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Larrey] combated the lack of food for the wounded under his care by preparing a<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|bouillon] of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|horse meat] seasoned with gunpowder for lack of salt.<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[64] ]<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|[65] ] It was also used for sterilizing on ships when there was no alcohol. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Christiaan Huygens] experimented with gunpowder in 1673 in an early attempt to build an <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|internal combustion engine], but he did not succeed in making a practical engine. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Fireworks] and <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|Firecrackers] also use gunpowder but use different brands and different chemicals. Black powder is still used in delay-trains in modern arms. For instance, in a hand grenade, a mechanical striker ignites a percussion primer which ignites a slow black powder delay. The delay burns a few seconds until it gets to the high explosive primary, which detonates, initiating the grenade fill explosive, thus fragmenting the grenade
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|nitrate], typically <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|potassium nitrate] (KNO3), which supplies oxygen for the reaction;
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|charcoal], which provides carbon and other fuel for the reaction, simplified as carbon (C);
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|sulfur] (S), which, while also serving as a fuel, lowers the temperature required to ignite the mixture, thereby increasing the rate of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; url(http: //www.wikispaces.com/i/a.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; padding-right: 10px;">[|combustion].