††††A windmill is a mill whose power comes from the wind. It is used to drive machinery for grinding corn or pumping water.
The first windmills to be recorded were in Sistan in Persia in about 650 AD. By 950 AD windmills were common in Persia.
The first European windmills appeared in Portugal in about 1150 AD. They were so different in design from the Persian ones that they must have been invented independently. The earliest European windmills took the form of a small wooden mill house with a gabled roof, which was supported on a single, stout wooden post about which it could be turned to face the wind. The sails were made of a wooden frame covered with cloth and they turned on a horizontal shaft. There were gears between the shaft and the millstone, so that the latter turned rapidly.
