Chuck Stowe, age 10, of Gastonia, North Carolina, for his question:
Who made the first gun?
The first guns were clumsy cannons that fired gunpowder to hurl rocks. We don't know who to blame for inventing them. Gradually, changes were invented to make firearms safer for their owners and more deadly to their foes. Most of these inventors also are unknown. We do know that generations of gunsmiths toiled 700 years or more to change those first cannons into modern firearms.
The story of guns began with powdery mixtures of chemicals. A little heat made them explode with a shattering bang. Different recipes were called gunpowders, Greek Fire or Chinese Salt. Some say the Chinese invented them thousands of years ago to make fireworks. Later the Chinese denied this and blamed foreign barbarians. This was after several inventors packed the mixture in metal tubes and fired it to hurl stones. Greeks and Persians, people of India and China, Germans and other warfaring countries used these early cannons and copied each other's inventions.
All sorts of cannons boomed in the 1300s and all sorts of tales were told about who invented them. One story claimed that a German alchemist called Berthold the Black had the idea first. One of his weird chemical mixtures exploded on the fire and shattered the copper pot. He thought, Ha! This magic recipe can be used to create a deadly weapon and he told this secret to a king. However, his majesty decided to punish the inventor for his ghastly idea. So Black Bart was tied to a helping of his gunpowder and blown up. By the way, his majesty was Good King Wenceslas.
In the 1300s, the richest knights on horseback carried smaller hand cannons. These were long sticks fixed to metal barrels, stuffed with gunpowder and fired with flaming torches. The proud owner also wore sturdy armor and carried a crossbow or other weapons. Often his hand cannon backfired or the deafenitig roar startled his horse. It also startled everyone around and sometimes struck down a foe. Dozens of inventors made different models, and some had mishaps. 11 1360, one experimenter accidentally blew up a town hall.
Around 1550, Miquel de Prats invented a simplified musket with a spring and hammer to fire bullets. Naturally, his popular gun was copied the Spanish; Germans and others invented changes and in the 1760s, the Americans and British used a model called Brown Bess to slay each other. Then sharp shooting Kentucky rifles and pistols were invented. The gunsmiths often put hex signs on them, hoping to protect the owners from evil spirits. In the early 1800s, popular guns had hammers to trigger the bullets by percussion. One was the pepperpot that had three barrels to fire three shots. In 1835, it was time for the American inventor Samuel Colt to design the deadly Colt revolver.
The problem with gun inventions is that they cannot be uninvented. Wars are won by those who have the deadliest weapons and everybody else tried to steal the secrets. The grim story started with those clumsy cannons and got grimmer through the centuries. Most of those who invented newer models are unknown. Who knows, maybe they heard the story about Good Icing Wenceslas and preferred to remain anonymous.