Silas Deane, left, worked with Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, center, to secure gunpowder from Antoine Lavoisier, right. Alamy (3) Shortly after taking command of the Continental Army in ...

1400s - The matchlock gun appears. Before the matchlock, guns were fired by holding a burning wick to a "touch hole" in the barrel igniting the powder inside. A shooter uses one hand for firing ...

The 'Gunpowder Plot' was foiled at the eleventh hour, an event still celebrated annually on 5 November and named for the most famous of the conspirators - Guy Fawkes Night. But who was Guy Fawkes ...