If you go out and and buy a book with paper money, if you put up an umbrella, strike a match, fly a kite or push a wheelbarrow, you have the Chinese to thank. These things are so familiar to us today we scarcely wonder where they came from. But it was the Chinese who first invented them. The iron plough, steel manufacturing, printing, the rocket and many other important inventions were all thought up by the Chinese many centuries before they appeared in the West. The mechanical clock, magnetic compass, suspension bridge, playing cards, parachute, paddlewheel boats, even the decimal system—all first appeared in China.

Mechanical clock

The world’s first mechanical clock was built by a Buddhist monk named Yi Xing in AD 725. A vertical waterwheel that had cups instead of paddles fixed to its blades turned when one of them filled up with water. The weight became too heavy for a pin holding it steady, the wheel moved forwards one notch, then was held by a pin until the next cup was filled, and so on. Rods and gears attached to the wheel moved the "hands" which told the time.

Seismograph

The seismograph was invented in AD 132. It is a vessel with eight dragons’ heads around the bowl and toads sitting below. When the machine is shaken during an earthquake, a rod inside swings and opens one of the dragons’ jaws. A ball falls out and drops into the mouth of the toad sitting directly below, recording the direction of the earthquake.

Wheelbarrow

The Chinese wheelbarrow is, in some ways, actually an improvement on the type we use today. It was invented in around AD 200. The things being carried in the barrow were distributed on either side of a large wheel so that the weight was balanced. The barrow had long handles and was easier to push than modern versions.

Inventions imported into Europe

Some Chinese inventions found their way to Europe through reports from travellers, while others were later "invented" by Europeans unaware that they were already in existence. Seed drills, iron ploughs, collar harnesses and the technique of growing crops in rows—all ideas that had been developed in China centuries before—helped farmers. The magnetic compass, the ship’s rudder, and other nautical improvements guided European explorers across the world’s oceans in the 15th century. Gunpowder greatly strengthened armies. Printing presses spread learning around the world.