Everything you wanted to know about a compass but were too lazy to look up.

The History:

I am sure you heard that The Orientals invented the magnetic compass in Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.). They used it not for something important like navagating the waters but for...get this...feng shui. Yes I said feng shui. It seems The Orientals needed help placing furniture or doorways, things that even our slowest slaves have the intelligence to do.

Or you might have heard The Olmec in Mesoamerica, used the geomagnetic lodestone earlier than 1000 BC for geomancy, a method of divination, which would predate the Oriental use of magnetism for feng shui by a millennium.So, The Olmecs used it for...fortune telling. Can you believe that!!

And of course in 1200AD a Roman, Flavio Gioia takes credit for inventing the refined compass and a statue was built in his honor.
He gets a statue for refining a compass someone else invented??
That's a Roman for you!

It is said the first recorded person to use a compass as a navigational aid was Zheng He (1371-1435).

FALSE FALSE FALSE!!!!

Sheesh..you heard me say this MORE than ONCE.
M-E-S-O-P-O-T-A-M-I-A-N-S invented EVERYTHING. That's the bottomline, don't forget it.
AND Here is a little proof for those who are still sceptical.

Now go to the Compass links below!
And don't forget to leave a message!