Who invented what?

[watervole]

 Where were windmills first used?

When was inoculation first used widely and who discovered it?

Who first discovered the circulation of the blood?

Who/when first calculated the circumference of the Earth? 

See here for answers that may not be the ones you first thought of.

Though, of course, for the last one, there is an even earlier answer.

How did you do?

Comments

[kalypso]

Well, I knew about Eratosthenes, obviously, and I remembered the wife of the ambassador to the Sublime Porte... Surprised to see windmills put so late, though I can't immediately think of an earlier example.

[keris]

Well, the Greeks calculated the circumference of the earth long before. Several of their other things are also not correct -- the 'pinhole' camera was known by the Greeks (who described its reversing behaviour as well as using it to view a solar eclipse) and the word camera comes from the Latin for a room earlier than the Arabic (we may have got it via Arabic for the specific "camera obscura" but that isn't certain, because phrases like "in camera" meaning "in chambers rather than out in the open court come from Latin). They admit that chess originated in India, but elide the Persian and Muslim connections (it was the Arabic conquerers of Persia -- which wasn't Muslim -- who then spread it to Europe). Windmills, too, were known in Greece and Persia (Afghanistan).

I don't know how much the journalist is "dumbing it down" (I can't find any references for his list via the linked site), but to me it reads rather like the list of 'Turkish' influences on Britain which were expounded by the Prophet of the Moon Misysra Ammon in G.K. Chesterton's "The Flying Inn" in an attempt to turn Britain Islamic. Which is a pity, because the way that so many of the things did indeed come to us via the Arabic world is informative, they just weren't necessarily the first. I hope that the actual museum descriptions are more accurate.

[watervole]

You're the second person to fail to notice that I did put in a link to Eratosthenes...

I didn't know about the Greeks and the pinhole camera, though.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Actually, the first person to calculate the circumference of the Earth was an ancient Greek called Eratosthenes...

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's why I linked to him in my last line...

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

Windmills and inoculation are Chinese, I think, but can't name an individual.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Shame, I only know that these inventions date back to ancient Greece, China and a lot to Arabic world...