How the Airplane Changed WarIn many ways World War II presents America's post-Civil War attitude toward technology and science. Trace the most relevant technology or scientific hypothesis from 1865 to 1945 showing how it changed or why it remained the same from the Civil War to the end of World War II. (Length 3 pages)America has faced several major wars including the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. These wars caused great advancements in technology and various fighting techniques. The Civil War was based on men fighting men with muskets and swords as their only fighting tool, this war claimed the lives of over 600,000 Americans. World War I technology played a larger role with the introduction of the airplane, explosives and armored vehicles. At the end of World War II technology was fighting the war, fewer men were needed to fight on the ground and the battles were taken to the air. The aircraft was modified from balloons used in the Civil War to have a powerful role in combat. During the Civil War, battles were fought on the ground and people rarely took to the air. Most aircraft of the late 19th century consisted of mechanical or lighter-than-air wings. Observers used balloons on the battlefield to report the status of advancing troops. Gliders were used for observations but were limited to where they could be used. During the late 1890s the American War Department focused more on developing a heavier-than-air flying machine. In 1903 Orville Wright in North Carolina flew the first combat with a modern airplane which led to further research into the development of the airplane. Before World War I European designers worked with information from the Wright brothers to ma...... middle of paper...... This firestorm caused severe destruction with extreme heat at the center, which transformed the buildings into dust and caused hurricane-force winds to batter land for miles around the center of the attack. These attacks devastated huge cities that supported the Japanese army. America has always wanted to be the biggest, fastest and most powerful. World War II forced America to quickly catch up to obtain this rank. At the end of World War II the United States earned this rank with the serious defeat of the Japanese Air Force. At the end of the war there was a large surplus of aircraft which were used to augment the commercial aircraft fleet. Wars have caused death and devastation but there are some positive effects, war causes an increase in support for scientific development. Without World Wars I and II it is difficult to say what the status of airplanes would be in American society.