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20,000 BCE
when humans first used bows
Although archery probably dates back to the Stone Age – around 20,000BC – the earliest people known to have regularly used bows and arrows were the Ancient Egyptians, who adopted archery around 3,000BC for hunting and warfare. In China, the earliest evidence of archery dates to the Shang Dynasty -
3000 BCE
When humans first domesticated horses
Humans acquire their most important single ally from the animal kingdom when they domesticate the horse, in about 3000 BC. Wild horses of various kinds have spread throughout most of the world by the time human history begins. -
1500 BCE
humans invent the matchlock
Matchlock firearms are a device for igniting gunpowder developed in the 15th century, a major advance in the manufacture of small arms. -
900 BCE
humans invent gun powder
Gunpowder was invented in 9th-century China and spread throughout most parts of Eurasia by the end of the 13th century. Originally developed by the Taoists for medicinal purposes, gunpowder was first used for warfare about 904 AD. -
1300
humans create the first hand cannon
The hand cannon was widely used in China from the 13th century onward and later throughout Europe in the 14th century until at least the 1560s, when it was supplanted by the matchlock arquebus, which is the first firearm to have a trigger. -
1400
humans invented the longbow
Based on indirect evidence, the bow seems to have been invented near the transition from the Upper Paleolithic to the Mesolithic, some 10,000 years ago. The oldest direct evidence dates to 8,000 years ago. -
Period: 1519 to 1521
Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire
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humans create the first submarine
An artist's reconstruction of what was probably the world's first working Submarine. Built for James I by Dutch engineer Cornelius van Drebbel and tested on the River Thames around 1620, it was essentially an enclosed rowboat. In 1636, a French priest, Marin Mersenne, added another piece to the jigsaw. -
humans create the first the first revolver
The first true revolver, in the sense of a gun with a rotating cylinder, was created by James Puckle, who patented it in 1718. It was actually a very early version of a machine gun, very similar to the design patented by Richard Gatling almost 150 years later in 1862. -
humans first create the machine gun
Invented by Hiram S. Maxim in 1884, the first automatic machine gun was birthed in the United States. Maxim's machine gun was completely self-powered and worked by relying on the energy released in the firing cartridge that would then dislodge multiple bullets with nothing more than the pull of a trigger. -
humans first create the first ironclad warship
An ironclad is a steam-propelled warship protected by iron or steel armor plates used in the early part of the second half of the 19th century. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. -
the development of the first tank
The first use of tanks on the battlefield was the use of British Mark I tanks at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette (part of the Battle of the Somme) on 15 September 1916, with mixed results; many broke down, but nearly a third succeeded in breaking through. -
Use of the first atomic bomb
On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation -
the first test of the hydrogen bomb
The first series of thermonuclear tests conducted by the United States took place in November 1952 during Operation IVY. The first test took place on November 1, 1952 on the small Pacific island of Elugelab at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The explosion, nicknamed the "Mike Shot", was very successful.