50 Fun Facts About Weapons

Which rifle appears on the national flag of Mozambique, crossed with a hoe over an open book?

The AK-47 on Mozambique's flag, shown with a bayonet fixed, stands for defence. No other national flag features a modern firearm.

Which weapon of World War I got its name from a British cover story about water carriers?

Tank began as a code word: British officials listed the secret landships as water carriers, then tanks, to hide what they were. They first fought at the Somme in September 1916.

Which naval weapon takes its name from a Latin word for the electric ray, a fish that stuns prey?

Torpedo was first the name of the electric ray, from a Latin root for numbness. By 1776 the word was being used for floating explosive charges, long before any could propel itself.

Which weapon did the Swiss folk hero William Tell use to shoot an apple off his son's head?

Crossbow in hand, Tell splits the apple with a single bolt in the Swiss story. In 1139 a Church council prohibited using crossbows against fellow Christians.

In which country did alchemists hunting for an elixir of life stumble on gunpowder in the ninth century?

China's Taoist alchemists probably found gunpowder by accident while heating sulfur and saltpeter in search of immortality. One early text warns that the mixture burned a house down.

Which American rocket launcher of World War II was nicknamed after a radio comedian's novelty musical instrument?

Bazooka was first the name of a novelty horn played by 1930s comedian Bob Burns. The new launcher's long tube looked enough like it that the nickname stuck.

Which toy did NASA engineer Lonnie Johnson dream up after an experiment shot water across his bathroom?

Super Soaker water guns grew out of Johnson's tests on a new kind of refrigeration system. The toy first went on sale in 1990 under the name Power Drencher.

Which medieval siege weapon, swung by a falling counterweight, could hurl heavy stones at castle walls?

The trebuchet called Warwolf, built for Edward I of England at the siege of Stirling Castle in 1304, is believed to be the largest ever made.

Which weapon's brand name is a loose acronym honouring Tom Swift, the young inventor of early adventure novels?

Taser stands for Tom Swift's electric rifle, a gadget from a 1911 novel. Its inventor Jack Cover, a NASA researcher, named the device after his childhood hero.

Which curved Japanese sword did the samurai of feudal Japan wear with its cutting edge facing upward?

The katana was thrust through a sash with its sharpened edge up, so a samurai could ideally draw and strike in a single motion. The older tachi hung edge down.

Which sword of King Arthur is, in some tellings, handed to him by the Lady of the Lake?

Excalibur comes out of a lake in some versions and out of a stone in others. Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur gives the same name to both swords.

Which weapon does the thunder god Thor wield in Norse mythology, a shape Vikings wore as a pendant?

Mjölnir is Thor's hammer, and small hammer pendants were commonly worn across Scandinavia in the Viking Age. In one poem Loki is threatened with it in a refrain repeated four times.

Which weapon, usually cut from yew, did most of Henry V's army carry at the Battle of Agincourt?

Longbow archers, English and Welsh, made up nearly 80 percent of Henry's army in 1415. The same weapon had already beaten French armies at Crécy and Poitiers.

Which weapon did the Roman gladiator called the retiarius carry along with a weighted fishing-style net?

The trident and net were styled on a fisherman's gear, and retiarius means net-man in Latin. With almost no armour, he relied on speed and kept a dagger in reserve.

Which medieval power's navy sprayed Greek fire, an incendiary weapon whose recipe was a state secret now lost?

The Byzantine Empire used Greek fire from the seventh century, spraying it from tubes onto enemy ships. It kept burning on water, and rival powers never managed to copy it.

Which American gunmaker made revolvers a mass-produced weapon and founded the company behind the Peacemaker?

Samuel Colt had the idea at sea, carving a model revolver from scrap wood aboard the brig Corvo. He later said a ship's capstan and windlass gave him the idea.

Which hand-cranked, multi-barrelled weapon did an American inventor design in 1861, hoping to shrink the size of armies?

The Gatling gun was the work of Richard Gatling, who wrote that he built it to reduce the number of soldiers needed and so cut deaths from combat and disease.

Which codename was given to the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima by the B-29 Enola Gay?

Little Boy was a gun-type design considered so sure to work that it was never tested before use. It fired one piece of enriched uranium into another.

Which simple weapon does the Bible say the young shepherd David used to fell the giant Goliath?

A sling, a staff and five stones from a brook were all David took, having turned down King Saul's armour. He then beheaded Goliath with the giant's own sword.

Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, the hot-tempered one in the red mask, fights with a pair of sai?

Raphael is the only one of the four still wearing the red mask they all had in the original version, the others having switched colours. Twin sai are his primary weapon.

Which Star Wars weapon is powered by a kyber crystal, the same kind that fuels the Death Star's superlaser?

A lightsaber's kyber crystal also gives the blade its colour. Kylo Ren's unstable, fiery blade is put down to a cracked crystal.

Which fictional metal from Wakanda was used to make Captain America's famous circular shield?

Vibranium reached Captain America as a gift: in the comics T'Chaka, king of Wakanda, gave him a sample in 1941. A later attempt to copy the shield's metal produced adamantium instead.

Which Ottoman sultan's giant bombards, one cast by the Hungarian Orban, battered the walls of Constantinople in 1453?

Mehmed II took the city after a 53-day siege and made it the new Ottoman capital in place of Adrianople. He had ordered Orban's cannon on hearing it could smash through walls.

Which blade does Link pull from a stone pedestal in The Legend of Zelda games to defeat Ganon?

The Master Sword debuted in A Link to the Past in 1991. In a later game, drawing it sends Link into the future and putting it back returns him to childhood.

Which weapon of choice does Indiana Jones, cinema's best-known archaeologist, carry coiled on his belt?

The bullwhip is part of his signature kit with the fedora and leather jacket. A prologue set in 1912 shows a teenage Jones first using one, and getting the scar on his chin.

Which compact German pistol became James Bond's sidearm when Ian Fleming retired the spy's Beretta in Dr No?

The Walther PPK was suggested by Geoffrey Boothroyd, a reader who wrote to Fleming criticising Bond's Beretta. The novel repays him with a character named Major Boothroyd, who issues the new gun.

Which Hogwarts founder's sword does Harry Potter pull from the Sorting Hat to fight the basilisk?

Godric Gryffindor's sword takes in basilisk venom during that fight, which is why it can later destroy Horcruxes. Ron Weasley uses it on one of them.

Which French anti-ship missile, named after a flying fish, sank HMS Sheffield during the Falklands War?

Exocet is simply the French word for flying fish. Argentine navy jets fired two at the British destroyer in May 1982, and the damage sank her.

Which DC superhero's weapon of choice is a magic lasso that makes anyone it binds tell the truth?

Wonder Woman and her lasso were created by William Moulton Marston, a psychologist who also helped invent an early prototype of the lie detector.

Which improvised firebomb did Finnish soldiers name to mock the Soviet foreign minister during the Winter War?

Molotov cocktail was a Finnish joke: when Molotov claimed Soviet bombers were delivering food, Finns named their bottle firebomb the drink to go with his food parcels.

Which engineer behind Nazi Germany's V-2 rocket later became chief architect of the Saturn V Moon rocket?

Wernher von Braun co-developed the V-2, which in June 1944 became the first artificial object to travel into space. His group was absorbed into NASA in 1960.

Which yellow-green gas did Germany release at Ypres in 1915, its first mass use of poison gas on the Western Front?

Chlorine, some 168 tons of it, was let out of cylinders to drift on the breeze toward British and French lines. The chemist Fritz Haber had proposed the heavier-than-air gas.

Which nickname was given to the British Army's Land Pattern musket, its standard firearm for over a century?

Brown Bess served as the British Army's standard musket from 1722 until 1836, and American revolutionaries carried it too. Nobody is sure where the nickname came from.

Which sword-blade metal, forged from Indian wootz ingots, is famed for its flowing-water pattern?

Damascus steel began as ingots of wootz imported from southern India. Whether the name comes from the Syrian capital or simply from the patterned look is still disputed.

Which short sword did Roman legionaries adopt from the Celtiberian warriors of Hispania during the Punic Wars?

The gladius gave English the words gladiator, meaning swordsman, and gladiolus, a flower named for its sword-shaped leaves.

Which frontiersman, who died at the Alamo, gave his name to a large fighting knife after a deadly brawl?

Jim Bowie won his fame when other men's duel turned into a brawl: shot and stabbed, he still killed a sheriff with a large knife. At the Alamo he led the volunteers until illness left him bedridden.

Which European country's adventurers introduced firearms to Japan when a storm drove their ship to Tanegashima island?

Portugal's adventurers landed in 1543 aboard a junk driven off course. The matchlock guns that Japan went on to make were called tanegashima, after the island.

Which Zulu king is credited with replacing the long throwing spear with the iklwa, a short stabbing spear?

Shaka is credited with introducing the iklwa, said to be named for the sound it made as it was pulled from a wound. Thrown spears were still used before closing in.

At which American university did a secret wartime laboratory led by chemist Louis Fieser develop napalm?

Harvard's secret laboratory ran its first napalm test on 4 July 1942, on a football field near the business school.

Which of the three Olympic fencing weapons is the only one that can score anywhere on the body?

The épée is the heaviest of the three and grew out of the duelling sword. Foil counts only hits to the torso, and sabre only hits from the waist up.

Which modern Japanese martial art is fought in protective armour with bamboo swords called shinai?

Kendo descends from kenjutsu, the old Japanese art of swordsmanship. Bamboo practice swords and armour were brought into sword training in the early 1700s.

Which Winter Olympic sport pairs cross-country skiing with rifle shooting and grew out of Norwegian army training?

Biathlon began as an exercise for Norwegian soldiers, and a rifle and ski club was formed in Norway as early as 1861. It joined the Olympic programme in 1960.

Which inwardly curved knife is the national weapon of Nepal and the trademark blade of Gurkha soldiers?

Every Gurkha soldier is issued two kukris, one for ceremony and one for exercise. The West first met the blade in the Gurkha War of 1814 to 1816.

Which stone edged the macuahuitl, the wooden sword of Aztec warriors, with blades sharper than a razor?

Obsidian is volcanic glass, and its prismatic blades take a keener edge than a razor. Spaniards noted that they were set so cleverly they could be neither pulled out nor broken.

Which pike, nearly six metres long, did Philip II of Macedon give his phalanx in place of the shorter dory?

The sarissa lengthened the rows of overlapping points projecting from a phalanx. It stayed the mainstay of Hellenistic armies for centuries after Alexander the Great.

Which name is inlaid on the blades of about 170 swords of the Viking Age found mainly in northern Europe?

Ulfberht is a Frankish personal name, possibly pointing to where the blades were made. The swords began a long medieval tradition of inscribed blades.

Which nickname is given to the most powerful nuclear weapon ever tested, dropped over Novaya Zemlya in 1961?

Tsar Bomba was dropped by parachute on 30 October 1961. Its shock wave caught the aircraft that released it 115 km away and knocked it 800 metres down.

Which spear-throwing lever, known by its Nahuatl name, let hunters launch darts far faster than the arm alone?

Atlatl is the Aztec word for a tool found around the world; Australians call theirs a woomera. Aztec darts thrown with one could pierce the mail and cotton armour most Spanish soldiers wore.

Which fabled sword joins a mirror and a jewel as the three Imperial Regalia of Japan?

Kusanagi, in the old chronicles, was found by the god Susanoo inside the tail of an eight-headed serpent he had slain. It is said to be kept, unseen, at Atsuta Shrine.

Which giant German howitzer of World War I did soldiers nickname after the heiress to the Krupp arms works?

Big Bertha got its nickname at the Battle of Liège in 1914, where the prototype guns destroyed two Belgian forts. Bertha Krupp had inherited the works from her father.