Nancy Castaldo - Greatest Inventions

What do dragons have to do with real-life science and history?

More than you might think!

For thousands of years, cultures all over the world have told stories about dragons, just as they told fanciful tales about unicorns, fairies, mermaids, ogres, and other mythical creatures. People made up these and other legends for many reasons: to explain the natural world, to give their lives deeper meaning, sometimes even just for fun! Stories passed down from generation to generation began to change over time. In many cases, fact (whats true) and fiction (whats made up) blended together to create a rich legacy of storytelling.

So even though you dont see them flying overhead, dragons are all around us! They are a part of our history and culture, bridging the gap between the past and the presentwhats real and whats born of our limitless imaginations. This makes the DreamWorks Dragons Dragon Riders ideal candidates to teach us about our world!

Think of the School of Dragons series as your treasure map to a land of fascinating facts about science, history, mythology, culture, innovation, and more! You can read the books cover to cover or skip around to sections that most interest you. Theres no right or wrong way when it comes to learning.

And thats not all! When youre done reading the books, you can go online to schoolofdragons.com to play the interactive School of Dragons video games from JumpStart. Theres no end to what you can discover. Be sure to check out the inside back cover of this book for a special game code that will allow you access to super-secret adventures!

All ready? Hold on tight, dragon trainers! Here we go

Throughout history, whenever something is difficult, people try to invent ways to make it easier. From the wheel to the smartphone, weve come up with amazing solutions to our everyday problems. Some inventions are discovered by accident, but most are the result of imagination and hard work. Lets look at a few that have made a big impact on history and our lives.

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C ROSSBOW

Invented by the Chinese over 2,000 years ago, the crossbow changed the way ancient armies battled. The distance an arrow can be shot with a standard bow is limited by the archers arm length. A crossbow can be shot by anyone able to pull the trigger.

An illustration of crossbow archery from 1555

The crossbow is essentially a bow mounted on a horizontal piece of wood with a trigger that releases the bowstring. The trigger has to be carefully crafted. If it is off by just a tiny bit, it wont work. Though it took longer to load than a traditional bow, the crossbow enabled ancient armies to fire many more arrows, darts, or stones than the traditional bow they had been using. Archers could reach targets up to 650 feet away!

Crossbows were used in war until the seventeenth century by many people, including the Chinese, the Greeks, and the Crusaders. Pope Innocent III banned the use of crossbows by Christians against Christians in the Middle Ages, but because crossbows were so effective in warfare, their use eventually became essential. Today, crossbows are mainly used for hunting and target shooting.