The history of mankind has been inevitably accompanied by wars. It is hard to think of a single year in the last ten thousand years when at least one civilization has not fought another. And as awful as it may sound, humans are very good at waging war. From the birth of ancient Greece to the present day, men have come up with more ways to kill and maim their fellow human beings than devices to cure them.

And sometimes, military engineers have come up with mechanisms that shock even modern engineers. We are now going to tell you how the first arrow machine gun was invented in ancient Korea, why the entire Roman army was afraid of Archimedes, and why they used to strap missiles to cats in the Middle Ages.