The Trebuchet
300 BCE (Chinese) / 1100 CE (European)
The trebuchet is a counterweight siege engine that could hurl 150-kilogram projectiles up to 300 metres with devastating accuracy — making it the most powerful weapon in the world for over 1,000 years. Invented in China around 300 BCE and perfected in the medieval Islamic world, it was used to hurl not just stones but also diseased corpses, beehives, burning tar, and severed heads. The physics of the trebuchet were not fully mathematically described until the 20th century.