Yes, gunpowder may have been hanging around for a while, but it didn’t become a significant force on the battle field until the 1400s.

On the other hand, Europeans knights were routinely covering their entire bodies with plate armour by the 1340s. And that’s after a half century or so of gradually adding more renforcements to the traditional maille. The 14th century is a wild time for the development of armour but by the 1380s, it starts to settle into the standard arrangement that you would think of for “classic full plate”.

That’s at least a solid century of rapid development without gunpowder as a main driver.

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You would think they would want to go and kill.

There was some use of copper sheeting to plate temporary fortifications as a means of reducing the ability to light it on fire with projectiles (drawbridges, gatehouse embattlements, etc), but only during the siege itself. However sheet metal would be thin and unlikely to stop any kind of significant projectile. As others have commented, this is either anecdotal history or referring to the use against common metal fixtures. In history siege engines rarely decided sieges, they were weapons of reducing fixed defenses and terrorizing your enemy to move them into a position of surrender. Most sieges that were not surrenders were won by betrayals with someone opening a gate or lowering a rope, not the Hollywood drama of the besiegers knocking a hole and gaining the wall.

I should probably have said something about crossbows and of course plate is great against a lot of other things on the battle field so clearly would be invented anyways. However while the timeline is not super clear we can find potential use of gunpowder in Europe as early as 1241 by the Mongols and guns by the 1320s. For plate armor, well technically it is ancient so gets into "define plate armor" with things like old Roman lorica to brigadines and coats of plates but I don't think I've ever seen the classic "full" plate sourced before 1400s.

It was always my understanding that plate armor was made obsolete by firearms, not because of them. If anything made earlier mail “worthless” it was the advents of the longbow and crossbow. Also, the other claim that they didn’t have plate armor during the “heyday” of castles is inaccurate.

Maybe some exiles were socially connected Cubans who were profiting alongside the Mafia and the American-backed dictator, and were angry that their corrupt livelihoods were taken away?

Perhaps the lowered standard of living has something to do with the decades-long US embargo? Can you name another Caribbean, Central or South American country which people are clamoring to enter? Having the world's most powerful country vehemently opposed to your existence tends to have a negative effect on your economy.

I’m just quoting Amnesty International.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/11/fidel-castro-s-human-rights-legacy-a-tale-of-two-worlds/

Not really.

Metal was very expensive and used sparingly and only where absolutely needed. Nails were all hand forged and expensive as well so lots of other joinery was used instead. In most castles the only metal/locking door was for the pantry where spices were stored since they were small and easy to steal and resell.

Metal plates weren’t a thing until well after industrialization and frankly aren’t much use vs cannons, which is what made your standard fortified castles obsolete.

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According to the guides it was also to stop elephants, because it’s hard for them to charge in a confined space. Made sense to me at the time.

Many stone works used bronze pins and clips to prevent the stone blocks moving.

https://www.messagetoeagle.com/mystery-ancient-metal-clamps-advanced-lost-technology-modern-science-still-cannot-explain/

Yes, some people may not realize that the Cuban Revolution ousted a U.S.-backed military dictator, Fulgencio Batista, who presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans and awarded contracts to foreign companies. He also negotiated lucrative relationships with the American Mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana. His secret police carried out wide-scale violence, torture, and public executions.

Batista was definitely a bad guy, and he was a U.S.-backed bad guy. It's no wonder the revolutionaries won support and influenced similar movements in other countries.

Castro also ruthlessly suppressed freedom of expression and exercised totalitarian rule. However, he did make substantial improvements to healthcare and education and won admiration for successfully defying the United States.

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“ Plate was developed in response to early firearms making earlier mail worthless.”

That doesn’t sound quite right. Plate got going in earnest by the late 13th century, and was highly developed by the end of the 14th. Firearms show up around the mid 14th century, but don’t develop a serious battlefield presence until the 15th.

The very first lines of the oldest story in human history—the Epic of Gilgamesh—describe the walls of the city of Uruk as gleaming like copper. Take from that what you will.

To get a sense of the sort of resource/labor limits pre-industrial societies had to work around consider that it was by no means uncommon for the curtain walls of a castle to NOT be solid stone but a contain hollow space filled in with whatever debris and dirt was handy. An architectural 'trick' that goes back thousands of years to Egypt where the swap from solid stone is why there are only like six proper pyramids because the dozens made after the switch all collapsed over the millennia.

Next technologically speaking the heyday of castles didn't even have the technology to put plate on a man. Plate was developed in response to early firearms making earlier mail worthless. And never that common, what you'd spend armoring a single wall could outfit an sizable unit of troops instead.

If you're talking about ramps like the one at the Gwailor fort (or the inner gate at Bhangarh fort), then that's not so much for preventing elephants but battering rams.

Elephants are pretty agile. Protected battering rams, not so much.

Nothing protects an establishment from the filthy horde of hippies than Slayer.

I think OP meant ancient to medieval and not industrial 1861-1865

Doesn't the Parthenon have two huge bronze doors? At least the one in Nashville does. I can't seem to find reference to whether the original had them.

Sometimes castle roofs were covered in lead sheets to keep fire off.

> The gates of Indian fortresses were also frequently studded with metal spikes to prevent an attacker from using elephants to bash down the gate.

Also sometimes built on a corner at the top of a narrow ramp for the same reason.

You don't usually forge bronze and copper, and making plates out of them is just a matter of casting one, which should be trivial to do.

And by the time period OP is asking about, arrowheads are iron or steel, so copper cladding a gate is irrelevant to their production, except maybe for the guys it takes to pour the casting.

I was thinking of the two most famous. I don’t care if you laugh. Lol.