| − | 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. | + | 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. |
| | 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. |