The Chinese civilization concerns the most ancient in the world. For all the time of the history the Chinese made a set of the discoveries which brought benefit to all mankind.
Paper and publishing
Chinese made rather big contribution to development of ways of dissemination of information, having invented paper. Unlike many cases when pioneers remained anonymous, history kept a name of the inventor of paper. The palace employee Cai Lun living in the 3rd century BC became him. The paper was made of scraps of fabric and bark of trees. The relative low cost was advantage of this material that allowed paper to extend and make widely texts more available to the population.
After the invention of paper also publishing became possible. In the 7th century the very first technology of the press appeared - the sample of the text which print could be printed on paper without changes was cut out from a tree. The first mentions of use of type-setting fonts in China belong to the 11th century.
Creation in China of the first-ever banknotes - paper money turned out to be important consequence of an invention of paper.
Military science
Chinese made the contribution also to development of military art. Various catapults were known to mankind since ancient times, however the invention of gunpowder - gas mixture of saltpeter, coal and sulfur became the real break. With its help the Chinese learned to create fire bombs which brought a big loss to the opponent. In China also the first firearms on the basis of gunpowder appeared - it were manual arquebuses. Later for firing at large targets prototypes of guns were created.
Chinese used also the western developments in arms. For example, they improved the Byzantine flame thrower, having made it two-jet.
Household sphere
Many things known to modern people in life, the first were invented in China. The example can be considered silk - the idea of receiving silk thread and production of fabrics from them appeared in the 4th millennium BC. The developing sunshade became also Chinese invention also. Very few people know, but the first fans also appeared in China, in the 3rd century BC. They were set in motion manually, however in them there were already blades. Subsequently in China also the fans working thanks to hydraulic draft were created. According to some information, in China also the first toothbrush of the confidant to a modern look appeared. At its production the bristle was used. Such brushes appeared in China in the 15th century, and in Europe their production began only in the 18th century.