Did you know?

I've decided to post about inventions, yes that's right, how many of you knew that some of the greatest inventions came from China? To confess I really didn't know any of these either until I took a Chinese culture class at MUN with the lovely Dr. Rainey. I was astounded at some of them, I really thought they were invented by the Egyptians, Romans, Greeks or British - who knew? Of course, this post is for Jade but I'm also going to dedicate it to my husband Ray too.

We all know fireworks were invented by the Chinese but did you know that the wheelbarrow was too? It was invented during the 1st century BCE and it was originally made out of wood.It was called the wooden ox. (I bet the Hebrew slaves wished they had the wheelbarrows when they were building the Pyramids. Would have saved a good many backs!) Wheelbarrows never surfaced in Europe until the 11th or 12th century. The Chinese also invented the compass which was made out of wood and had a piece of ore moulded into a spoonlike shape. It was first used in terms of harmony, making sure that man made objects and nature were in tune and later they used it as a navigational tool for Chinese ships.

The Chinese invented the first earthquake machine. (I've included a picture of it at the beginning of this blog) It is now known as a Seismograph. It was a vessel shaped jar with 8 dragon heads protruding from all different directions. Each dragon had an open mouth which contained a ball. Under each dragon head there was an open mouthed toad and depending on which dragon head vibrated and dropped its ball into the toad's mouth, the Chinese could tell from which direction an earthqueske was occuring. Modern seismographs never surfaced elsewhere in the world until 1848.

They invented gunpowder as well. This was by accident as the Chinese Emperors were obsessed with achieving eternal life. They would hire alchemists to find the elixor that they could swallow therefore living forever. These alchemists would combine many different chemicals and one combination they happened to create was explosive. They decided to put this mixture in bamboo tubes and the gases the mixture emitted made the bamboo tubes fire; gunpowder was born.

This gunpowder led to many more inventions, one being the cannon, which was made out of iron and it fired the gunpowder filled bamboo. Another invention was what they called shooting flaming arrows. The Chinese strapped the bamboo filled tubes to arrows and lit them, hence the name flaming rockets/arrows. There is also folklore that surronds the gunpowdered flaming rockets. It is beleived a man decided he wanted another mode of transportation and upon seeing these flaming rockets decided to strap a bunch of them to a bamboo chair. He then created a top to go over the chair. He sat in the chair and had people light the rockets. The result was that the chair and the man were blown to bits. (I never said it had a happy ending!) hmmmm, I wonder was that a first introduction to air planes?

Speaking of air travel and airplanes did you know that the Chinese invented the first helicopter rotor and blade? No, neither did I. During the 4th century they invented this as a toy. It had a top on it that served as an axis and a cord was tied around it. There were blades sticking out at different angles. When the cord was pulled this toy would launch into the air and fly. It was called a bamboo dragonfly and today's helicopters are modelled after this toy.

China is responsible for a whole bunch of other inventions as well. They invented kites, which were made out of square pieces of silk and fastened to bamboo sticks (the first kites of Europe were seen in 1589). They were the first to harness their animals and made plowing equipment out of iron for agricultural purposes. They made the first waterproof boats and the first steering rudders. They developed a counting abacus, paper money first surfaced in China during in the 9th-10th century. (In Europe paper money was not introduced until 1661), acupuncture and anaesthetics were made from wine for health purposes and they introduced many herbal remedies/medicines.

The Chinese invented the first printing press as well as paper making and writing. The oldest piece of paper was found in a tomb near X'ian and dates between 140 and 87 BCE. They were the first to have books and even had bookshops during the Tang dynasty. The Chinese created the first planetarium. The viewer would sit in a chair that hung from the ceiling of the building. They invented the decimal system in 14 century and made matches from sticks of wood with blobs of sulfur on the ends.

A few last interesting points that I bet you didn't know. The Chinese created their war armour out of thickened paper, were the first civilization to perform skull surgery and they invented chess.

too cool huh! Now you know...