rocketry
The First Golden Age of Rocketry
Written by former National Air and Space Museum curator for rocketry Frank H. Winter, this Smithsonian publication is considered to be the first comprehensive history of the use of rockets as artillery in the late-18th and 19th centuries. Englishmen William Congreve and William Hale developed and refined the rocket as a piece of technology. Gunpowder rockets have been used in a variety of military and non-military applications, including life-saving (rescues at sea), whaling, and torpedoes.