Gunpowder

Gunpowder is a rapidly burning mixture, traditionally made from potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur. It produces hot gas and pressure for propulsion or explosive effects.

Potassium nitrate: Potassium nitrate is an ionic salt used in fertilizers, food preservation, and oxidizing mixtures. It supplies oxygen that lets gunpowder burn rapidly without drawing it from the surrounding air.
Chinese alchemy: Chinese alchemy was a tradition of laboratory practice and theories concerning substances, health, and transformation. Experiments in this tradition produced early gunpowder mixtures.
Firearm: A firearm is a ranged weapon that launches a projectile by expanding gas, usually from propellant combustion. Gunpowder became the propellant in early firearms and remained widely used in them.
Smokeless powder: Smokeless powder is a modern propellant based mainly on nitrocellulose, formulated to produce much less smoke than black powder. It largely replaced gunpowder in firearms because it produces less smoke and more gas per mass.
Black powder: Black powder is the traditional gunpowder mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur. It is the historic formulation whose combustion explains gunpowder's characteristic behavior.
Wujing Zongyao: The Wujing Zongyao is an 11th-century Chinese military compendium containing early gunpowder formulas. Its recipes provide some of the earliest surviving written evidence of gunpowder.
Artillery: Artillery comprises large-caliber weapons designed to fire projectiles over long distances. Gunpowder enabled cannons to launch heavy projectiles against fortifications and armies.
Dynamite: Dynamite is an explosive containing nitroglycerin absorbed into a stabilizing material. It became a more powerful and practical blasting explosive than traditional gunpowder.
Deflagration: Deflagration is combustion that propagates through a material by heat transfer at subsonic speed. Gunpowder normally deflagrates rather than detonating, creating pressure as gases form.
Mongol invasions of Europe: The Mongol invasions of Europe were 13th-century campaigns by Mongol forces into eastern and central Europe. Eurasian military contact during this period contributed to the westward transmission of gunpowder knowledge.

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