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While trying to discover a potion of invincibility, Chinese alchemists of the Tang Dynasty accidentally discovered saltpeter, the main part of gunpowder. With more experimentation, saltpeter was combined with charcoal and sulfur to create gunpowder.

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The Chinese fire lance was a bamboo tube that had gunpowder in it to fire rocks, when ignited (in the 10th century) and is declared by historians as the first gun ever made. Gunpowder was invented in China before this gun in the 9th century. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykhhmZ5XTHk

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Evolution of Early Gunpowder Weaponry - from Ancient China to Europe

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What gun came after the Chinese fire lance ?

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What gun came after the Chinese fire lance ?

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The metal barreled hand Cannon was was a gun that came after the Chinese fire lance, the metal barreled hand Cannon was an iron tube that you put a layer of gunpowder in and then a layer of meatal shrapnel's or rocks in, then lit the wick in the backside of the cannon witch lit the powder witch blew out the shrapnel's or rocks sending them brutally into bodies of the other army. After the hand cannon there was the iron bomb. Which was a bamboo stick filled with gunpowder, inside of an iron ball, when the when you would ignite the fuse and it lit the gunpowder. The iron case would explode and send the iron shrapnel's into their enemies. After these disastrous inventions came the arquebus the first gun that came to Europe but we will talk about that later.

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The arquebus, (from a word meaning "hook gun") was a long-barreled musket-like gun, shot from the chest or the shoulder. The muzzle-loaded weapon with a lot of recoil was ignited by a matchlock, a metal hook-like device that connected a wick to the gunpowder with the pull of a trigger.

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The caliver was a more modernized version of the arquebus, (a type of arquebus) and it came halfway through the 16th century. "Caliver" is an English derivation from the French calibre – a mention to the gun's standardized bore. (The inside of the barrel)

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The musket came after the arquebus, unlike the arquebus the musket shot with a flintlock. A flintlock had a hammer that held onto flint, the flint hit a piece of steel that created a spark, that then ignited the powder. Which shot the round piece of metal out of the barrel. The musket was originally a matchlock until flintlocks were made in the 17th century.

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After the musket came the shotgun, the shotgun was made specifically for hunting birds in 16th-century England. The shotgun was good for hunting because it shot multiple pellets at a time, the reason people never used it in battle and instead used the musket, was because the shotgun was so inaccurate.

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pirates have existed since ancient times, but the Golden Age of piracy was in the 17th and early 18th centuries. When pirates were around, more than 5000 pirates were said to be at sea. pirates are just people willing to rob others transporting goods on the water.
During the Golden Age of Pirates they used the flintlock pistol, a gun that could easily be used with one hand. It had to be reloaded with each shot, but carrying multiple weapons could make up for the limited firepower.

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The caplock (also known as the percussion lock) replaced the flintlock in the early 1800s, the percussion lock works when the hammer hits the cap. The cap is a small metal box with gunpowder in it, so when the hammer hits the cap it ignites the gunpowder, witch fires the gun.

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The first colt revolver was made in 1835 by Samuel Colt, the first multishot revolving gun. Texas loved the revolver and it became that people in texas were the only ones to buy colt's product.

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The Spencer repeated carbine rifle came out in 1863 it was one of the best guns in the civil war because it had a magazine that could hold seven metallic cartridges, which were fed to the barrel by a compressed spring in the magazine.

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Gun Timeline | History Detectives | PBS