Q 01/05

The word 'cannon' comes from the Old Italian cannone, meaning what?

A) Thunder

B) Fire stick

C) Iron mouth

D) Large tube

Answer · why

D) Large tube

Large tube: Italian took canna, a reed or tube, and added -one, its ending for 'big', because a cannon of any age is at heart one long, thick tube.

Q 02/05

In which country did the cannon most likely first appear, possibly as early as the 12th century?

A) Italy

B) Turkey

C) Egypt

D) China

Answer · why

D) China

China: soldiers there loaded scrap iron and pottery shards into the fire lance, a bamboo gunpowder flamethrower on a pole, and when the bamboo gave wa...

Q 03/05

Which gun, cast under Mongol rule in 1298, is the oldest surviving cannon to carry its own production date?

A) The Loshult gun

B) The Xanadu Gun

C) The Wuwei Bronze Cannon

D) The Heilongjiang hand cannon

Answer · why

B) The Xanadu Gun

The Xanadu Gun: found in the ruins of Kublai Khan's summer capital, it carries a serial number beside its date, a sign that gun-making there was alrea...

Q 04/05

Troops of which dynasty carried hand cannons into battle against the rebel prince Nayan in the 1280s?

A) Song

B) Yuan

C) Tang

D) Ming

Answer · why

B) Yuan

Yuan: the commander Li Ting led ten picked men into the rebel camp by night and set off their guns, causing such confusion that the enemy soldiers att...

Q 05/05

The earliest known European picture of a gun, from the 1320s, shows it firing what?

A) A length of chain

B) A feathered arrow

C) A burning torch

D) A handful of nails

Answer · why

B) A feathered arrow

A feathered arrow: the vase-shaped gun appears only as an unexplained picture in the border of Walter de Milemete's treatise on kingship for the futur...