On a cool, April night, Abraham Lincoln decided to attend a performance at Ford's Theatre, not knowing what awaited him there. A well-known actor, John Wilkes Booth, pulled out a gun and shot the President. Lincoln was then taken to a neighboring house where he died the next morning. Every American knows this tale, but few know that President Lincoln's life could have been spared if not for the actions of a young man and an elderly gentleman from the Middle East.
The year is 4000 B.C., and an adventurous young man rests his eyes upon one of the many horses that naturally parade around his home in ancient Syria. He decides to prove his worthiness and prowess to a nearby woman, who happens to be in an adjacent field picking dates with other women her age, by capturing this beast and forcing it to obey his will. The man climbs a giant oak and jumps from one of the branches extending out over the pasture. He lands on the horse's back, but the beast immediately bucks him off. The man glances over at the woman and sees her chuckle to herself. Now, he is even more determined to become master of the beast. After much struggle and many attempts, the man tames the horse (somewhat). Horseback riding is born.
Now that the ancient people have discovered the art of horseback riding, only a short time passes before they want to be able to carry more goods with them on the horses and to make trips on a horse more comfortable. These desires lead to the development of a round object - the wheel - that makes heavy objects move with less applied force, thus allowing carts and chariots to replace the cumbersome sledges currently in use.
Around the same time, these "primitive" people begin to construct huge monuments and statues, including the Pyramids, the Great Lighthouse, and even the Taj Mahal. They use the knowledge that has allowed these and other fantastic monuments to be created, combined with the basic knowledge of physics that has developed from the use of the wheel and axle, to develop the beginnings of engineering.
Near to the place where the ancient man had developed horseback riding, a Phoenician elder of the same era sketches a rudimentary symbol on a stone tablet with a piece of charcoaled wood, and, after many years and many mutations, this drawing becomes what is known as the letter "A." Soon, other characters will follow, and, from these scrawlings, materializes the alphabet used by most of the modern world. How these letters develop over time, first into written language and finally into the age of literacy, is easily envisioned.
Through the combining of the engineering know-how that these people have achieved with the ability to spread that knowledge and pass it on to their heirs by means of the written word, a great wave of invention and enlightenment envelops the Earth. Scientific knowledge and the practical use of that knowledge increases at an exponential rate and greatly influences a world that will never again be the same.
Our ancestors are now well into the Iron Age and are just waiting for weapons to come along that will surpass the swords and knives that they possess and allow them to kill more accurately and in even greater numbers. Eventually, the development of the bow and arrow becomes of some usefulness, but a more reliable, higher-range weapon is still the driving force behind many inventors during this period. One such example is the catapult. During this same general time period, the Chinese are experimenting with a mysterious black powder which they have discovered. They make many beautiful fireworks that cover the entire spectrum of colors, but killing people with this powder is only accomplished through the ingenuity of the white men.
Friar Roger Bacon first introduces gunpowder into Europe in 1242 and discloses its makeup in a book which he publishes. Only a couple of decades later, a German monk named Berthold Schwartz develops the black powder into a practical explosive, creates the first firearm in the early 1300's, and uses it in cannons as early as 1346.
These practical uses of gunpowder lead to many changes. The most obvious and drastic comes in the form of warfare. No longer are troops required to undergo hand to hand combat, for most attacks can now be conducted from a distance. Also, guerrilla warfare becomes an available option, giving the smaller of two forces a chance in wartime. Another example presents itself in the case of Abraham Lincoln, whose assassination would have been much more difficult to carry out if not for the use of a gun.
In addition, this discovery leads to an arms race that continues even to this day. With each side trying to build the biggest, most powerful gun, much new technology results. This primitive cold war leads to the refinement of metallurgy which allows cannons made of new alloys to be developed. As these alloys become more complex, developments such as electricity, steel, and even the silicon used in transistors emerge. The world, without these discoveries, is hard to imagine.
As one can see, many seemingly unrelated events culminated in the discovery of gunpowder, and in turn its discovery led to numerous effects. One can only wonder if those two men working so long ago could have envisioned the significance and consequences that their accomplishments would have whether or not they would have continued their work. Would Einstein have disclosed to the world his Theory of Relativity if he had known he would indirectly be responsible for the deaths of countless Japanese civilians? No one can tell what effect our actions or inactions may have in the future; we must judge for ourselves by what we hold to be true today and trust in the wisdom of the future generations not to abuse what we have given them.
