at was filled with a powder ordrug meaning they used gunpowder. Some people think the "thunder" was a real cannon.However it was most likely really nothing more than some kind of metal bomb filled withgunpowder and was thrown at the Mongols by the defending Chinese. Only a few decades after this time, the Mongols completed their conquest of thegreatest land empire ever known to man, not only including all of China, but also most ofthe rest of Asia and Eastern Europe as far west as Poland and Hungary. Because of thisempire existing, it was possible for Europeans like Marco Polo (however its not beenproven if Marco Polo himself ever traveled as far East as China) to travel freely to the FarEast, and for many new things gotten there to be brought by them back to Europe. It ismost likely although not completely proven that gunpowder was among some of theproducts which were introduced to Europe this way. If all of that is true then the use of gunpowder for cannons is more or lesscompletely a development from Europe. In historical documents here cannons are referredto in Italy, France, England, and other countries from about 1330 onward. Which goes toshow that while the Chinese most likely invented gunpowder it is the great thinkers of theWestern world that made gunpowder into its most useful form. In any case, the Chinesethemselves, despite knowing of cannons existing over the past several centuries, haverarely made great use of them until relatively recent times. Their knowledge ofgunpowder, for the most part, had been applied to peacefully making fireworks andfirecrackers.So now that China derived this soon to be great weapon of warfare how did theEuropeans take that knowledge and engineer the first cannons and put the gunpowder onthe battlefield. The first record of gunpowder in Europe is most often credited to FriarRoger Bacon from England. He makes a minor description of the mixture of saltpetresulphur and charcoal, the three main ingre...
