fire ignites the sulfur which brings forth a bright flame so that the charcoal catches fire the fire then suddenly sets free a wind from the saltpeter that Kindles December it is this wind that vents moves the bullet and quote this is how the process of burning gunpowder was imagined in the sixteenth century many such imaginative descriptions were based on the work of the famous Italian scholar Nicollet Italia who was the first to apply math to investigate the trajectory of cannonballs the discipline we today call ballistics gunpowder was a technical innovation that losting ly changed the face of European warfare and culture in the late medieval and early modern times even though early gunpowder weapons were ineffective they fascinated military artisans who over time tweaked them into absolutely essential weapons for any successful military operation this is how contemporary historiography tells the story of gunpowder [Music] the first piece of evidence of a chemical mixture considered as gunpowder goes back to ninth century China Chinese alchemists who were looking for an elixir of life noted that their newest experimental concoction wasn't healthy at all and very easily inflammable the name of that mixture in Chinese was Oh Yao which means fire medicine in the 11th century the oldest written formula of a gun powder mix appears in the who would sink to me out a compendium of military techniques of the time but such early formulas didn't contain enough so Peter to create an explosive some also included Rogers surprising ingredients such as honey and garlic the first military use of the fire medicine is dated to the 10th century when it was used to make gunpowder arrows usually refer to as fire arrows it didn't take long until it's military use was expanded to other arms such as Rockets bombs and landmines and towards the end of the 13th century - the first simple hand cannons most present-day historians are confident that gunpowder was invented in China and then transferred to Europe however there are some scholars who argue that gunpowder or at least its use in firearms was developed in Europe independently from China the three notable historians Stefan Murillo Jeremy black and Paulo cocoa for example state quote the Chinese do seem to have invented guns independently of the Europeans at least in principle but in terms of effective cannons the H goes to Europe and quote it is a major blank spot in the chain of evidence that it isn't clear which route gunpowder took from China to Europe although the Mongols are often considered the likeliest vector historians such as Timothy may point out that there is no evidence that they used gunpowder weapons outside of China additionally other inventions such as the compass took centuries to reach Europe while gunpowder only took about 50 years bear in mind however that there are no European records of the early evolution of gunpowder and gunpowder weapons like the ones mentioned from China as the historian Tonio under other states the earliest formulas for gunpowder in Europe appear later and are already very close to the ideal proportions to create an effective explosive and propellant powder but there are also similarities with Chinese recipes Thomas Arnold notes that early European and Chinese gunpowder recipes have identical defects such as superfluous and useless ingredients one important difference however is that early Chinese sources use terms such as fire drug or fire medicine for gunpowder these imply a civilian use while Europeans used it almost exclusively in military matters whatever the truth may be the first European to mention gunpowder was the English philosopher Roger Bacon who in 1267 described firecrackers in his opus Maya use the earliest unambiguous evidence of firearms in Europe is an illustration in an English manuscript dated to 1326 by those very early guns certainly impressed contemporaries they weren't effective at all it was only in the late 14th and 15th century that gunpowder weapons became more effective and gradually replaced other long-range weapons in Europe when decisive improvements were made in refining the mysterious black powder that nourished these firearms early experiments quickly underlied the efficacy of three ingredients charcoal saltpeter and sulfur charcoal is the fuel of the chemical reaction saltpeter supplies oxygen and sulfur lowers the temperature required to ignite the mixture charcoal was readily available in Europe but specialists continuously experimented with coals from different words normally charcoal from hard wood which had been burned in charcoal piles was used sulphur was more difficult to get by it had to be mined in volcanic areas such as Naples Sicily or Sweden saltpeter - was tricky to get especially in high quality initially it could only be imported from India in very limited quantities however saw Peter was found in Europe as well forever ammonium nitrate was formed during the decomposition of nitrogenous organic material that is urine mock or dung which then reacted to nitrate salts with calcareous materials such as mortar Europeans induced his process on purpose as early as the 14th century however procuring so Peter remained a central bottleneck in the production of gunpowder until large deposits were found in Chile around 1820 once all ingredients were assembled they were refined and purified by grinding them down to fine powder this was done in powder mills with wooden stampers powered by a waterwheel this grinding process was extremely dangerous because the ingredients could ignite involuntarily due to the heat produced by friction learning from tragic accidents the mills were built in isolated locations and the working materials were cooled down with water vinegar or uranium from about 14 21 were the powder was no longer used as extremely fine powder but rather as grain powder at first primarily in heavy cannons in order to corn the powder it was first and then driving bulbs and eventually broken into roughly equal pieces or pressed through a sieve when still them to get equally sized grains current powder was less prone to get wet and the ingredients couldn't separate during transportation as was often the case with fine powder quickly experienced showed the vet current powder cost much more powerful explosions consequently fine powder was soon only used as a primer to trigger ignitions but not to fire bullets and transported separately in small powder flasks in the sixteenth century technical improvements enabled the use of smaller current powder for rifles and pistols as well the corn size was adapted to the weapon it was intended for in addition the amount of powder and the mixing ratio changed both were important to guarantee an effective deployment of gunpowder experts in this field were called master gunsmith these reputable specialists developed improved recipes and wrote them down in books which were often richly Illustrated apart from the composition and corn size of the gunpowder the form and material of the guns had to be considered in order to make sure the process of shooting function properly and safely this was quite a field to master especially because it was only in the middle of the sixteenth century that some standardization in terms of guns and gunpowder took on the quality of gunpowder increased steadily throughout medieval and early modern times in the 17th and 18th century many European countries set up state controlled manufacture ease which combined all steps of production in one central place this led to a marked increase in quality however in the mid 19th century with the advancement of explosives flattened the outstanding importance of gunpowder after the American Civil War industrially produced smokeless explosives on the base of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin such as dynamite in 1866 overhauled it quickly you [Music]