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=== China's Contributions ===

=== China's Contributions ===

What inventions do we owe to ancient China?  A great deal: paper, fireworks, the compass, the umbrella, the fan, spaghetti, acupuncture, bamboo, harvesting silk, and perhaps the first planetarium.  Later, in A.D. 850, China invented gunpowder.

What inventions and innovations do we owe to ancient China?  A great deal: paper, gunpowder (hence fireworks), the magnetic compass, the umbrella, the fan, spaghetti, acupuncture, the fixed rudder, harvesting silk, and perhaps the first planetarium.  

English philosopher Francis Bacon said this about three Chinese inventions:  "Printing, gunpowder and the compass: These three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries."<ref>http://www.bjreview.com.cn/forum/txt/2008-08/26/content_146756_2.htm</ref>  Sometimes historians refer to the "Four Great Inventions":  paper-making, printing, compass and gunpowder, and claim that China deserves credit for all four.

English philosopher Francis Bacon said this about three Chinese inventions:  "Printing, gunpowder and the compass: These three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries."<ref>http://www.bjreview.com.cn/forum/txt/2008-08/26/content_146756_2.htm</ref>  Sometimes historians refer to the "Four Great Inventions":  paper-making, printing, compass and gunpowder, and claim that China deserves credit for all four.