No one knows where artillery is first used, but The Heilongjiang hand cannon or hand-gun is a bronze hand cannon manufactured no later than 1288 and the world's oldest surviving firearm. The Heilongjiang hand cannon was excavated during the 1970s in Banlachengzi, a village in the province of Heilongjiang in Manchuria.
The earliest surviving illustration of artillery is a drawing of a crude form of cannon in a manuscript dated 1327 (now in the library of Christ Church, Oxford).
The 4th Earl of Salisbury became the first Englishman to use cannons in battle in 1428. He later became the first Englishman to be killed by a cannon.
In 1452 a Hungarian engineer, known as Orban, offered to build an extremely powerful siege cannon to the Byzantines. However, Emperor Constantine XI could not afford his high salary nor did he possess the materials necessary for constructing such a large siege cannon. So Orban instead sold the cannon to the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, who was preparing to besiege the city. He used it to breach the walls of Constantinople in 1453, which brought the end to the Byzantine Empire
Orban's cannon was a massive 19-ton bombard of cast iron. When Mehmed II took possession of the cannon he terrified Constantinople's inhabitants by trundling close to their city a massive 19-ton bombard of cast iron. It required 16 oxen and 200 men to manoeuvre it into its firing position. Once there, it settled down to a slow but devastating bombardment of vast stones weighing as much as 600 pounds. The rate of fire was seven stones a day.
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| The Heilongjiang hand cannon. Wikipedia Commons |
The earliest surviving illustration of artillery is a drawing of a crude form of cannon in a manuscript dated 1327 (now in the library of Christ Church, Oxford).
The 4th Earl of Salisbury became the first Englishman to use cannons in battle in 1428. He later became the first Englishman to be killed by a cannon.
In 1452 a Hungarian engineer, known as Orban, offered to build an extremely powerful siege cannon to the Byzantines. However, Emperor Constantine XI could not afford his high salary nor did he possess the materials necessary for constructing such a large siege cannon. So Orban instead sold the cannon to the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, who was preparing to besiege the city. He used it to breach the walls of Constantinople in 1453, which brought the end to the Byzantine Empire
Orban's cannon was a massive 19-ton bombard of cast iron. When Mehmed II took possession of the cannon he terrified Constantinople's inhabitants by trundling close to their city a massive 19-ton bombard of cast iron. It required 16 oxen and 200 men to manoeuvre it into its firing position. Once there, it settled down to a slow but devastating bombardment of vast stones weighing as much as 600 pounds. The rate of fire was seven stones a day.
The Dardanelles Gun, also known as the "Great Turkish Bombard," was built in 1464 by the Ottoman Turks and was used to defend the Dardanelles Strait against enemy ships. The Dardanelles Gun was one of the largest cannons ever built, with a barrel that was over 22 feet long and a caliber of almost 2 feet. It was capable of firing projectiles that weighed as much as 2,000 pounds, and it was used in combat until 1807, when it was finally decommissioned. The Dardanelles Gun is now on display in the Istanbul Military Museum.
The Medici rulers of Florence fled in 1494 after Charles VIII of France invaded Italy with 60,000 men and modern innovative artillery made of bronze.
"Son of a gun" is said to have originated on ships in the 1500 or 1600s when women literally gave birth between the ship's cannons.
In 1625 Ordnance factories in Sweden begin producing light but powerful field artillery, which was easy to move on the battlefield.
The cannon that shot Nelson’s arm is thought to have been one known as ‘Tiger’.
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| The Dardanelles Gun, cast in 1464 which was based on the Orban bombard |
The Medici rulers of Florence fled in 1494 after Charles VIII of France invaded Italy with 60,000 men and modern innovative artillery made of bronze.
"Son of a gun" is said to have originated on ships in the 1500 or 1600s when women literally gave birth between the ship's cannons.
In 1625 Ordnance factories in Sweden begin producing light but powerful field artillery, which was easy to move on the battlefield.
The cannon that shot Nelson’s arm is thought to have been one known as ‘Tiger’.
A "loose cannon" is an apt name for something out of control: when an 8000 pound cannon came loose from a mooring on a ship, it could wreak terror on the crew as it wiped out anything or person in its path and destroyed the ship's walls.
A ship’s cannon balls used to be stacked on a brass structure called a ‘monkey’ – the brass would contract in cold weather and the cannon balls would fall off. From this comes the phrase 'Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’.
The term "shrapnel" has been generalized to refer to any fragments of bullets, shell casings, and bombs, the term originally referred to a hollow cannonball filled with lead shot that burst in mid-air, invented by Henry Shrapnel in the 18th century.
Sailors used Edam as a makeshift cannonball in a battle between the Uruguayan and Argentinian navies in 1841. One of the cheesy missiles killed two men.
There is one double barrel cannon in existence. It was forged in the spring of 1862 in Athens, Georgia, according to the design of John Gilleland. He was a 53-year-old private in the Mitchel Thunderbolts, a homeguard unit for men too old for active duty. The weapon was intended to fire simultaneously from side-by-side barrels two balls linked by a chain, intended to scythe down enemy soldiers like standing wheat.
Big Bertha was the name of a type of super-heavy siege artillery developed by the armaments manufacturer Krupp in Germany on the eve of World War I. When firing the huge cannons during the war, its German operators had to move 300 yards away and fire it electrically. They were still so close they required cotton wadding in their eyes, nose and ears, and fired it with their mouth open to prevent the gun from blowing out their ear drums.
Jim Bristoe, an American, invented a 30-foot-long, 2-ton pumpkin cannon that can fire pumpkins up to five miles.
A ship’s cannon balls used to be stacked on a brass structure called a ‘monkey’ – the brass would contract in cold weather and the cannon balls would fall off. From this comes the phrase 'Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’.
The term "shrapnel" has been generalized to refer to any fragments of bullets, shell casings, and bombs, the term originally referred to a hollow cannonball filled with lead shot that burst in mid-air, invented by Henry Shrapnel in the 18th century.
Sailors used Edam as a makeshift cannonball in a battle between the Uruguayan and Argentinian navies in 1841. One of the cheesy missiles killed two men.
There is one double barrel cannon in existence. It was forged in the spring of 1862 in Athens, Georgia, according to the design of John Gilleland. He was a 53-year-old private in the Mitchel Thunderbolts, a homeguard unit for men too old for active duty. The weapon was intended to fire simultaneously from side-by-side barrels two balls linked by a chain, intended to scythe down enemy soldiers like standing wheat.
Big Bertha was the name of a type of super-heavy siege artillery developed by the armaments manufacturer Krupp in Germany on the eve of World War I. When firing the huge cannons during the war, its German operators had to move 300 yards away and fire it electrically. They were still so close they required cotton wadding in their eyes, nose and ears, and fired it with their mouth open to prevent the gun from blowing out their ear drums.
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| Big Bertha in action |
Jim Bristoe, an American, invented a 30-foot-long, 2-ton pumpkin cannon that can fire pumpkins up to five miles.
There is a howitzer cannon permanently mounted at Charles River esplanade in Boston, which is used every July 4th as "extra percussion" for Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.
Sources Daily Mail, History World
Sources Daily Mail, History World
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