[Sca-cooks] Gunpowder, not Noodles/Pasta

[James Prescott]

At 22:49 -0400 2001-08-05, johnna holloway wrote:
> I can cite a source for even earlier.
>
> Roger Bacon Philosopher,
> surnamed DOCTOR MIRABILIS, b. at Ilchester, Somersetshire, about
>                           1214; d. at Oxford, perhaps 11 June, 1294.
>
> "He was the first person in the
> West to give exact directions for making gunpowder (1242); and,
> though he knew that, if confined, it would have great power and
> might be useful in war, he failed to speculate further."
> from the New Catholic Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Britannica.
>
> I'd have to wonder about the precision of the date unless the document
> actually exists.