The beginning of the 20th century saw the pioneers of vertical flight resolving many of the problems that kept their crafts from getting off the ground.

The first rockets were invented by the Chinese more than a thousand years ago. A byproduct of their invention of gunpowder, rockets were used to add extra flare to fireworks displays. It was inevitable that these far-reaching projectiles would eventually take on militaristic applications.

Science and the military have not always been allies. One of science's fundamental principals is that great discoveries are meant to be shared. The military believes exactly the opposite. Traditionally, science and the military have cooperated only in wartime. Then, scientific knowledge becomes a closely held secret, and money and resources pour into research that might have military significance.

The longbow was the machine gun of the Middle Ages. Accurate, deadly, possessing a long range and rapid rate of fire. By the 16th century, firearms replaced bows as their potential was grasped. Edward Gibbon was to claim that gunpowder effected a new revolution in the art of war and the history of mankind, a bold but not overly fantastic claim. Gunpowder weaponry first developed in China.

Imagine you're a third world dictator with delusions of grandeur. You've spent a good deal of your nation's gross national product on state of the art weaponry. You're thinking that might bring you increased access to shipping lanes or some useful natural resources. One morning you wake up, and see, floating offshore, in perfectly legal international waters a couple of American warships.

On the night of September 6th, 1776, a small group of men on the shore of New York Harbor silently lowered a most peculiar-looking craft named the American Turtle into the water. It carried an underwater bomb. The Turtle was not the first submarine craft, but it was the first used in war. A new age in warfare was about to be ushered in.

Although fleet or squadron operations continued an historic role, the daring of the individual still possessed the potential to destroy a Goliath. Stealth, deception, and hoax were employed alongside conventional military confrontation. On occasion, the Army's prerogatives became interchangeable with the Navy's. Soldiers attacked ships, sailors raided shore targets.

The Civil War is renowned for the introduction and employment of many new weapons, including rifled artillery, machine guns, and submarines. To this list should also be added railroads. The three most important, game changing technologies of the American Civil War were the railroad, the use of the telegraph, and the development of the mini-bullet and the rifled musket.