The history of mankind is marked with a series of key events: the discovery of fire, the domestication of farm animals and plants, the invention of the wheel, the use of other forces than their own to achieve their goals (animal, wind or water to power processes), the discovery of electricity, etc. One of these events, i.e. the use of wind to power processes, has lead to a group of tools that has clear cultural, scientific and technical aspects, which are regionally diversified.

Windmills with sails turning around a vertical shaft (which means turning in a horizontal plane) are indicated for Iran and Afghanistan for the ninth century. Vertical windmills are supposed to be reported from the tenth century in some Mediterranean countries. These windmills could have the shape of the recent cylindrical tower mill, as currently exists along the entire Mediterranean area. The Domesday Book, with a very detailed description of the belongings of land owners in England in the eleventh century, does not give any indication of a windmill.

The first citations of a windmill in northern Europe are from approx. 1180 almost simultaneously in Flandria (western Belgium), Picardie (north-western France) and East Anglia. Early descriptions and drawings from the thirteenth century gave a quite clear view of a post mill with common sails (or double framed sails). An early illustration of a post mill from England is shown left.

It took two centuries for the development of a new type in north-western Europe. The first indication of cylindrical tower mills in the former Duchess of Cleve (now mainly Germany) is from around 1380. The machinery for these tower mills was adopted from post mills, and differed largely from that of the Mediterranean windmill.

Again almost two centuries were needed before new developments were achieved. In the sixteenth century the smock mill and the conical tower mill arose, along with the external winding of the cap, boarded sails and weathering (variable twist of the lattice frame). These developments were at first mainly found in the Netherlands. Were the windmills until now predominantly used for grinding cereals or salt, new applications were found, such as pumping water, sawing of wood, ore crushing, oil pressing and paper making.

New refinements were achieved in England in the late eighteenth century. A fan or fly tackle was developed for automatic winding of the cap and sails. Later a system of automatic shutters replacing the cloth sails was based on the inventions of spring sails and the hollow windshaft. The latter allows to adjust the sails while turning. These new inventions were mainly exported to some windmills in the northern part of the Netherlands, to Germany and Denmark. Early twentieth century comparable systems were invented in the Netherlands and Germany.