HIST 2220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Scale-Invariant Feature Transform, Arquebus
Document Summary
Conclusion of paper should be significance of thesis and body paragraphs. Europeans knew about gunpowder as early as 1200s. Gunpowder knowledge learned from china from trade increase and mongols. Mongolian empire took over land china to hungary to baghdad 1200s (largest empire geographically in history) Mongols link between knowledge of gunpowder with europeans. Took europeans a couple hundred of years to develop weapons with gunpowder: expensive to import saltpeter to make gunpowder, didn"t have saltpeter plantations to make it themselves (basically manufacturing centers) Diffusion of technology took centuries to assimilate into culture: inherent conservatism within peasants, unsure about change. Making gunpowder required some sense of chemicals: general population and even well-educated people didn"t have much scientific background. Different kinds of weapons were designed for certain mixtures of gunpowder. Chinese had recipe for gunpowder written down by 1044. The likely earliest use for gunpowder was for entertainment (fireworks)
