Throwing Things Around

By: vivian on terça-feira, novembro 14, 2017

A catapult is technically any kind of machine that causes a projectile to travel a great distance. That means everything from a slingshot up is a catapult. But when most of us think of a catapult, we think of a medieval weapon of war. So that’s what this post is about.

the catapult was invented in China (unsurprisingly) in the 300s or 200s BCE. Its first form was basically a giant, meaner crossbow. The catapult was good enough at its job, of killing people and taking cities, that more and more sophisticated versions were invented. Today we actually still use catapults, albeit much less than they did in the middle ages. For instance, sophisticated version of the humble catapult launches planes off the decks of aircraft carriers!

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