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Where we get our word ‘magazine’ from

Krugermeier

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Banned !
Minuteman
Aug 25, 2022
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Carolinas
Did you know that a magazine was a reinforced storehouse building designed to hold gunpowder?

A magazine is an item or place within which ammunition or other explosive material is stored. The word is taken originally from the Arabic word makhāzin(مخازن), meaning "storehouses.”

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These storehouses were rather dangerous. On the rare occasion they would explode, leveling parts of a city and killing many, most notably in Delft, Holland.

The Delft Explosion, also known in history as the Delft Thunderclap, occurred on 12 October 1654 when a gunpowder store exploded, destroying much of the city. Over a hundred people were killed and thousands were injured.
Today, the explosion is primarily remembered for killing Rembrandt's most promising pupil, Carel Fabritius, and destroying almost all of his works.

Delft artist Egbert van der Poel painted several pictures of Delft showing the devastation.
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Over 200 magazines and powder houses were built in New England, and about 50 remain.

We have a famous 300-year-old magazine still standing in Williamsburg, Virginia.


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When black powder was superseded by smokeless powder, magazines became more like bunkers rather than storehouses and are used to hold cartridge ammunition and explosives.


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The term has grown to mean any reinforced structure or container meant to safely house ammunition or explosives. Many companies offer magazines as small as a floor safe or as large as a mobile home.


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I have been to a handfull of forts in NY and the northeast. I think I was in the magazine of Fort Ticonderoga. The guy giving the tour pointed out that it was wet inside, and thats not good for the powder. Well it wasn't always wet. There was an explosion that cracked the rock underneath and now its always wet.
 
Dern. I always thought magazine came from Make America Great Again....

Seriously, cool post. I lived for a few years between Picatinny Arsenal and Hercules Powder in nw New Jersey. You could tell when there was a mistake...
 
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Take a look at some of the frontier forts in Texas and the magazines can be quite small. Or so you think. Once your consider a charge of black powder, the size of firearms and cannons and it become clear that there was a whole lot of potential stored in those stone buildings.
 
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