Timeline of rocket and missile technology
This article gives a concise timeline of rocket and missile technology. 11th century AD - The first documented record of what appears to be gunpowder and the fire arrow, an early form of rocketry, appears in the Chinese text Wujing Zongyao. In Europe, around 1250 both Roger Bacon and the Liber Ignium gave instructions for constructing devices that appear to be rockets. 1633 - Lagâri Hasan Çelebi launched a 7-winged rocket using 50 okka (140 lbs) of gunpowder from Sarayburnu, the point below Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. 1650 - Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima ("Great Art of Artillery, the First Part") is printed in Amsterdam, about a year before the death of its author, Kazimierz Siemienowicz. 1664 - A "space rocket" is imagined as a future technology to be studied in France and its drawing is ordered by French finance minister Colbert; designed by Le Brun on a Gobelins tapestry (see: French space program) 1696 - Robert Anderson suggests making rockets out of "a piece of a Gun Barrel" whose metal casing is much stronger than pasteboard or wood 1798 - Tipu Sultan, the King of the state of Mysore in India, develops and uses iron rockets against the British Army (see Mysorean rockets). 1801 - The British Army develops the Congreve rocket based on weapons used against them by Tipu Sultan. 1806 - Claude Ruggieri, an Italian living in France, launched animals on rockets and recovered them using parachutes. He was prevented from launching a child by police. 1813 - "A Treatise on the Motion of Rockets" by William Moore – first appearance of the rocket equation 1818 - Henry Trengrouse demonstrates his rocket apparatus for projecting a lifeline from a wrecked ship to the shore, later widely adopted 1844 - William Hale invents the spin-stabilized rocket 1861 - William Leitch publishes an essay "A Journey Through Space" (later published in his book God's Glory in the Heavens (1862)) in which he postulated the use of rockets for space travel because rockets would work more efficiently in a vacuum.
