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Jan 1, 1000
Prehistoric weapons.
Human beings have probably always killed each other. Early people used clubs, axes and spears. They also used bows and arrows. (Cave paintings from Spain dating from 10,000 to 5,000 BC show men fighting with bows).A wooden club is a surprisingly effective weapon. As early as 6,000 BC African cave paintings show people armed with clubs. Much later wooden clubs were still used in Africa and the Pacific. Early axes were made of wood and stone. (Like the tomahawk of the Native Americans). -
May 5, 1500
First Gun Invented.
The earliest 'hand gun' was developed in the fifteenth century, but was not a great influence in battle. It was a small cannon with a touch-hole for ignition. It was unsteady, required that the user prop it on a stand, brace it with one hand against his chest and use his other hand to touch a lighted match to the touch-hole, and had an effective range of only about thirty to fourty yards. It surely must have taken iron nerves to use one of these against a charging knight, nearly within his land. -
Knuckle Dusters
Brass knuckles are pieces of metal, usually made of steel despite their name, shaped to fit around the knuckles. Designed to preserve and concentrate a punch's force by directing it toward a harder and smaller contact area, they result in increased tissue disruption, including an increased likelihood of fracturing the victim's bones on impact. The extended and rounded palm grip also spreads across the attackers palm the counter-force that would otherwise be absorbed primarily by the attackers. -
Nucleur Bomb.
Ernest Rutherford, in 1919, was the first to split an atom, though it was nitrogen, and thus there was no power generation or explosion. In 1932 Sir John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton were the first to cause a nuclear reaction by the fission of an atom. Enrico Fermi, however was the first to fission uranium, in 1932, though at the time he did not fully appreciate the consequences of this discovery.
