History
The Chinese were making pig iron by the later Zhou Dynasty (1122–256 BC). In Europe, the process was not invented until the Late Middle Ages (1350–1500). Actually the phase transition of the iron into liquid phase in the furnace was an avoided phenomenon, as decarburizing the pig iron into steel was an extremely tedious process with medieval technology.
Read more about this topic: Pig Iron
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I believe that history has shape, order, and meaning; that exceptional men, as much as economic forces, produce change; and that passé abstractions like beauty, nobility, and greatness have a shifting but continuing validity.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)