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weapon is in warfare. well the first revolutionary weapon that relied on

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gunpowder was the cannon. and in case you don't know a cannon is any piece of [ men shooting cannons]

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large artillery that uses gunpowder to fire a lump of something at the enemy.

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and yes we suppose that could refer to a lump of pie if you happen to be fighting

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the great clown Civil War of 1942. it was a battle our lawyers requiring us to

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tell you that it's not a real event it didn't actually happen please don't sue

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us. all right so if we can shove something into a tube and make that to

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blast that something outwards well that tube is a cannon. that ammo doesn't even

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have to be cannonballs. hence the existence of water cannons and

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t-shirt cannons though luckily not wet underwear cannons that would hurt. all

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right early cannons had a hilariously short

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range and were mostly made out of wood. yep someone actually said hey let's use [ wooden cannon explodes]

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wood to contain a small explosion what could possibly go wrong?

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well we're guessing that person was the lucky recipient of a Darwin Award . anyway

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our innovative ancestors quickly figured out that wooden cannons were a bad idea.

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probably after they watched that one doofus explode. nothing changes a plan

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faster than chunks of Peter raining down on you. right well it wasn't long before

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they were making large iron or bronze tubes that could fire long distances and

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the ones who figured it out the fastest like the Ottomans quickly laid their

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hands on some massive empires. right the best technology wins. they also avoided

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hearing about a 60% chance of Peter chunks in the forecast.

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cannons quickly replaced most of the siege weapons we described in the last [weather man predicts falling human parts]

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lesson. which might make the last lesson feel pointless but hey there's a

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takeaway here. don't waste your time on this earth with pointless things. we hope

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you've learned something today. catapults ballistae and trebuchets suddenly

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looked kind of silly next to Canon's sorry guys we still love you for

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your nostalgic charm. cannons also did a number on the age building eye walls and

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waiting until the nasty soldiers went away. well fortified became a thing of

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the past. after all it's not exactly fortified if there are giant cannon ball

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shaped holes everywhere. eventually some people started saying these ginormous

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cannons are great but uh you know what would be better? [inventor talks about smaller cannons]

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smaller cannons. like and that's how smaller and smaller cannons were made

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eventually there were indeed things called hand cannons. and they were

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suspiciously like guns. except way Dumber. why well the earliest handguns hadn't

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been lit like cannons this meant people had to aim the gun with one hand and

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like the fuse with the other. well 1400s the matchlock had been invented which

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had a little lever that touched the wick to the Gunpowder. easier ? maybe but still

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not easy. and we humans are loved things to be as easy as possible.

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anyway early gunpowder weapons might not look like much, but guns had enough fans [man in suit of armor carrying flint lock pistol]

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that they evolved crazy fast. and even slow guns were way better than bows

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arrows in boiling oil. by the 17th century a military gap was growing all

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over the world between those who had gunpowder and guns and those who did not.

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and those who did were quick to use it to their advantage. now soon the world

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would pine for the quaint loving days of the trebuchet. for the simple days where

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one could die simply by being smashed by a giant rock. [man is smashed with rock]

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