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gunpowder
i am researching a topic for one of my classes and i need information. I've tried google, msn, ask jeeves..all that..but I need more. So does anyone know the effect of gunpowder before, during, and after it's invention. how did it change the world? anymore info would be appriciated. I rate everyone a 5 if they give appropiate answers..thankyou so so soo much!
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Before gunpowder was widely used as a weapon it was a mixture to try and cure illness's and a type of "elixer" for eternal life in ancient china by taoist researchers, but in the process of creating the compound., they created a highly explosive and combustable powder known as black powder.
Several years later it was used in ancient china as a primitive rocket booster that could be launched from bamboo pole at the enemy, they were also used as fireworks, which served as signals and decorations in ancient China.
When the europeans discovered this compound via the silk road and trading vessels and once back in europe it was refined into a much more controlable (it was less explosive and more suited for firing projectiles without the backlash explosion) compound, which is now known today as gunpowder.
Once refined it was used in primitive and extremely large cannons (such as the Ottoman Turks used againts the Byzantiniums in the last seige of Constantinople, where a massively large cannon launched several large cannon balls each waying a ton or more). In the beginning of the 15th or 16th centuries the matchlock and wheellock rifles became common in the armies across Europe, and made almost army in Europe had them. Later models would be the flintlock (18th century) and carbine 6 shooters (used during the middle and late 19th centuries) and would completely change the way armies fought. At the end of the 19th century gunpowder was being replaced with smokeless powders that caused almost no smoke or backlash from the combustion and at the end of World War One, gunpowder was considered obsolete and it was discontinued from service.
Its effect, it changed the way armies fought and trained. Before the invention of gunpowder, the world widely used melee weapons (like a sword or mace) and some ranged weapons (archers). But after the introduction of gunpowder the armies of Europe and eventually the world would train with rifles. It also caused the widespread decline of cavalry (since horses versus flintlock rifles would end up as a massacre, as seen in the crimean war where 600 english horses were soundly defeated by a small squad of russian soldiers armed with rifles). It also changed the way seiges and artillary were used, when once before boulders were used as the mainstay city breaker, now it is highly concentrated titanium pointed shells which would be fired at tremendous speeds and cause increadible damage. In short, if gunpowder was not here, we could well be set back several hundred years.
Hope this helps and you get all the info you need.
-Ryan
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Before the invention people used ropes and spears that didn't do much damageif it hit a person in a certain place. During the invention it was olny used in battles. Now adults, teens and kids use it to get revenge or to prove that their the baddest thing around. Guns are the reason why most adolscence die these days.
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It changed the world by allowing users across the world to shoot a weapon and kill someone.
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