What is the significance of gunpowder

At first, China used gunpowder simply to scare or surprise their enemies. When the Chinese realized the significance of what they had invented, they started to use gunpowder to kill instead. The military forces of the Song Dynasty started using gunpowder devices against the Mongols as early as A. By the 11th century, the Chinese were filling bombs with gunpowder and firing them from catapults. These fire cannons needed two people to carry them and were fired from moving platforms placed near the wall of the enemy city.

The Song government realized the extreme advantage they had in warfare and tried to keep gunpowder a secret from other countries. In , they even banned the sale of saltpeter to foreigners. Despite all their efforts, knowledge of this new substance was carried along the Silk Road to India, the Middle East, and Europe.

By , recipes for gunpowder had been published in the west. Although initially developed for medicinal purposes, the Chinese people quickly realized gunpowder's potential as a weapon. At first, gunpowder was used to start fires. The Chinese also used it to blind, burn, poison and provide a smoke screen. Later, it was a component of flaming arrows and rockets and was used to fire projectiles. These projectile launchers represent the first guns. Bombs were another use for gunpowder in ancient China, as were land mines, which became common in the 13th century.

Gunpowder and projectile technology came to Europe in the 14th century and was quickly adapted to make cannons. Employing the bronze-making technology that they had previously used to cast bells, Europeans created siege cannons capable of destroying castle walls.

The development of field artillery and handguns in the late 15th century meant that knights, who were burdened by armor that did not stop bullets, became vulnerable. Gunpowder somehow remained a monopoly of the Chinese until the 13th century, when the science was passed along the ancient silk trade route to Europe and the Islamic world, where it became a deciding factor in many Middle Age skirmishes.

By , rudimentary gunpowder cannons were commonplace in the English and French militaries, which used the technology against each other during the Hundred Years' War. The Ottoman Turks also employed gunpowder cannons with abandon during their successful siege of Constantinople in The powerful new weapon essentially rendered the traditional walled fortification of Europe, impregnable for centuries, weak and defenseless.

The next important step for gunpowder came when it was inserted into the barrel of a handgun, which first appeared in the midth century and was essentially a cannon shrunk down to portable size.

Guns literally put weaponry into the hands of the individual, creating a new class of soldier — infantry — and giving birth to the modern army. Gunpowder is still the basis for many modern weapons, including guns, though it's certainly no longer the most explosive force available to armies. Need to celebrate a victory in battle, though?