Gunpowder facts for kids
Gunpowder (or gun powder) is a mix of chemical substances (charcoal, sulfur and saltpeter). It burns very quickly, and creates gases. Those gases use up more space than the gunpowder they come from, so they push outward. If the gunpowder is in a small space, the gasses will push on the walls of the space, building up pressure. In a gun, the pressure pushes against a bullet, causing it to fly out at high speeds. The pressure is not high enough, though, to destroy the gun barrel.
Gunpowder was invented by the Chinese, the first references of black powder, which is a form of gun powder date to the 9th century, when Roger Bacon described the formula of black powder. According to legend, Chinese alchemists were looking for a formula to create the elixir of life, or the mythical potion that causes whoever drinks it to become immortal, when they accidentally created gunpowder. Because the powder was highly flammable, or burned very easily, they decided to call it "fire medicine". Shortly after the discovery, the Chinese weaponized the substance, or made weapons out of it, and throughout the centuries they would make many weapons using gunpowder, including rockets, bombs, flamethrowers, and land mines before making cannons and guns. The oldest weapon that uses gunpowder dates back to a bronze handheld cannon made in northeastern China in 1288.
Images for kids
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Re-enactors volley firing with black powder
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Gunpowder for muzzleloading firearms in granulation size
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Flash pan starter dispenser
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Earliest known written formula for gunpowder, from the Wujing Zongyao of 1044 AD.
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Stoneware bombs, known in Japanese as Tetsuhau (iron bomb), or in Chinese as Zhentianlei (thunder crash bomb), excavated from the Takashima shipwreck, October 2011, dated to the Mongol invasions of Japan (1274–1281 AD).
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A 'flying-cloud thunderclap-eruptor' firing thunderclap bombs from the Huolongjing
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Earliest depiction of a European cannon, "De Nobilitatibus Sapientii Et Prudentiis Regum", Walter de Milemete, 1326.
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De la pirotechnia, 1540
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In the year 1780 the British began to annex the territories of the Sultanate of Mysore, during the Second Anglo-Mysore War. The British battalion was defeated during the Battle of Guntur, by the forces of Hyder Ali, who effectively utilized Mysorean rockets and rocket artillery against the closely massed British forces.
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Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, hunting deer using a matchlock
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A double barrelled cetbang on a carriage, with swivel yoke, ca. 1522. The mouth of the cannon is in the shape of Javanese Nāga.
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Gunner of Nguyễn dynasty, Vietnam
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Burst barrel of a muzzle loader pistol replica, which was loaded with nitrocellulose powder instead of black powder and could not withstand the higher pressures of the modern propellant
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Hexagonal gunpowder for large artillery
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Edge-runner mill in a restored mill, at The Hagley Museum
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The old Powder or Pouther magazine dating from 1642, built by order of Charles I. Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotland
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Gunpowder storing barrels at the Martello tower in Point Pleasant Park, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
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See also
In Spanish: Pólvora para niños
