In the modern world, which has changed rapidly in the past 50 years or so, your computer is a weapon. Yes, that’s right, your computer. When we think of weapons, we think of AK-47s and nukes, or even swords and bows if you’re an ancient guy, but no one suspects, say, a common household item such as a computer to potentially destroy a whole country. However, in these times, this is actually possible. So, how did we get there?
Last article, we left off on the invention of firearms by the Chinese and the passing of those to Europe. Back in the Renaissance, they weren’t exactly popular. However, in armies, the arquebus, an early form of the musket, was rising in popularity. As early as 1465, Ottoman Janissaries (slave-soldiers) were using arquebuses, and in 1470, Europeans added crossbow-inspired stocks or butts to the arquebuses. Hand cannons were used much earlier in Germany and France. Wheellock pistols were used during this time.
The Chinese pioneered the use of hand cannons. In the Yuan invasions of Java and Japan by Kublai Khan, the Mongols and the Indonesian Majapahit navies used cannons using Chinese gunpowder. In Europe, flintlock muskets, an improvement on the arquebus, was invented. The French had specific soldiers that wielded these called musketeers, which feature in the classic novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. Muskets were used in the Revolutionary War in the 1770s, along with rifles. Rifles were used by German mercenaries and British Redcoats, but they lost to American muskets because muskets had faster reloads. However, during the Crimean War, the Minie ball was invented and smoothbore muskets went out of fashion. The Henry and Winchester rifles had repeating loads of ammo, something that had never been seen before.
In 1861, Richard Gatling invented the Gatling gun, the world’s first machine gun. Germans in World War II introduced the first assault rifles. Machine guns became popular when Mikhail Kalashnikov invented the AK-47, the AKM, and the AK-74. Samuel Colt made the first revolver, making the weapon popular in the American West. And with that, I leave you here. The next article will detail biotechnology, weird weapons, and cyberweapons.
Anay Ganesh 