Leonardo Da Vinci was a famous artist, scientist, and inventor. Most people know him as the artist who painted the Mona Lisa, but he was more than that. He was also a very famous inventor. Inventions he came up with were the bicycle, a helicopter, an "auto-mobile", and some gruesome weapons.

Born on April 15, 1452 Leonardo Da Vinci was the first person known to attempt to build a flying machine. He started playing with air when he built a parachute. After a parachute he made a flying machine with bird-like wings that "flapped". Although it was unable to fly the closest thing we have to Leonardo’s flyer is a hang glider or ultralight. Leonardo’s last flying invention, and one of his most famous, was a flying machine somewhat like today’s helicopter. But there were many problems with the design. Like Leonardo’s other flyer it was too heavy to get off the ground.

Since lifting of weights is one of the most common problems of the engineer and mechanic, Leonardo gave it much study, designing the idea of the modern pulley. Modern forms of this are the automobile jacks that are for flat tires.

Leonardo Da Vinci designed a clock mechanism with two separate hands, one for minutes and the other for hours, each complete with gears and weight. It may be that Leonardo had some purpose in mind when he designed his dual train mechanism.

Even though he hated war, in Renaissance Italy war was hard to avoid, so Leonardo Da Vinci reluctantly designed and created some weapons during his lifetime. Such weapons include the armored car. The car was to be operated from inside by 8 men, who would turn the cranks to move the wheels. Leonardo invented a cannon with adjustable elevating arc; this weapon can be adjusted in height. The three barreled cannon which was invented by Leonardo was used during wars was better than a regular cannon because it could shoot more cannonballs quicker. A hull rammer was used to ram into enemy ships and was mostly used by assault troops and deep-sea divers. Leonardo invented a giant crossbow as well because it could hold more ammo and had more power than a normal crossbow. Like Leonardo’s giant crossbow, his multiple crossbow was very useful during wars, by being able to shoot more arrows at a time than a normal crossbow. As well as the weapons listed he also created grenades, missiles, machine guns, mortars, and other weapons.

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