V2

[Robin Landseadel]

 From "5 Weapons That Changed the World," by Chad Mumm in "Switched":

	The weapon: The V2

	The technology: The V2 ballistic missile grew out of early
	German rocket tests led by Wernher von Braun. The scientific
	endeavor was co-opted by the Nazi war machine in the 1930s,
	and the research project -- that made the V2 the first man-made
	object to reach outer space -- became one of the most terrifying
	weapons of all time. Engineering triumphs, from its complex
	inertial guidance system and liquid-fueled rocket engine,
	allowed the V2 to strike predetermined targets in England from
	launch sites across the English Channel, and the missile's
	extreme, supersonic speeds made it absolutely silent until after
	it had turned your street into a hellish, fiery crater.

	How it changed the world: When a single, non-nuclear weapon
	 is responsible for inspiring one of the greatest books of the
	20th century (Thomas Pynchon's 'Gravity's Rainbow'), you know
	it deserves a place on this list. As much a psychological
	weapon as a physical one, British fear of the V2 was
	disproportionately larger than the number of deaths from the
	bomb. That same fear was pervasive in the 1970s thanks to the
	V2's descendants: nuclear-armed ICBMs. Of course, history is a
	double edged sword -- the V2 research effectively began the
	space race. Most of the V2 engineers were snapped up at the
	end of WWII by the U.S. and the Soviet Union to run each
	country's nascent space programs.

http://www.switched.com/2009/07/07/5-weapons-that-changed-the-world/