What weapons originated from gunpowder?

Answer 1

Any weapon that was used to launch a projectile had its origins in gunpowder. The Chinese use gunpowder for rockets, bombs and for cannons. Later, the Europeans used gunpowder to develop more sophisticated projectiles and firearms such as guns, cannons, and handgrenades. Our current use of rifles and missiles were born out of the early use of gunpowder. ***Actually, the first sentence of the above answer is incorrect. Projectile weapons pre-dated gunpowder by thousands of years. Arrows launched from bows, stones thrown by slings, rocks, sticks, boomerangs, etc., are all projectile weapons which do not rely on gunpowder or its precursor, black powder.

Answer Actually, black powder is gunpowder. Modern firearms use a variety of propellants largely based on nitrocellulose of which British Cordite was an early example. No modern firearms use "gunpowder" as such. Cordite came in strands like spaghetti and most modern propellants are in granular form.

Answer 2

Gunpowder was invented in China in the 9th century, most likely by alchemists seeking a formula for everlasting life. They mixed together sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate (known as saltpeter). Sulfur and charcoal acted as fuels and saltpeter as an oxidizer. As they experimented with increasing amounts of saltpeter, they reached the point where the very rapid oxidation created an explosion rather than merely a fire. Gunpowder was the first chemical explosive ever produced.

Years ago in school we were taught that the Chinese invented gunpowder but used it only in fireworks, not for weapons. This was not accurate. They saw the potential of gunpowder as a weapon and in the next few centuries produced a variety of gunpowder weapons, first rockets, bombs, and land mines, and then inventing the gun, a projectile weapon using gunpowder. There is documentation of their use of guns, cannon, rockets, grenades and bombs against the Mongols who invaded China.

The Mongols were nevertheless successful, and promptly adopted the use of gunpowder themselves. Most scholars now believe that the Chinese invention was spread by the Mongols as they continued their invasions westward. They used firearms and grenades in 1241 in the Battle of Mohi against the Kingdom of Hungary, for example, and possibly cannon in the Battle of Seville in 1848. By that time the Arabs had also learned about gunpowder as a Chinese invention.

Although we were taught that monk Roger Bacon separately invented gunpowder in England in the 13th century, his formula included too low a proportion of saltpeter to have created anything more than a small firecracker. Europeans improved the manufacture of gunpowder, but did not invent it.

Answer 3

Gunpowder is made in china in the Tang Dynasty.

Answer 4

They used it to make fireworks