<Ul> <Li> agriculture </Li> <Li> space </Li> </Ul> <Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> Although Chinese culture is replete with lists of significant works or achievements (e.g. Four Great Beauties, Four Great Classical Novels, Four Books and Five Classics, etc .), the concept of the Four Great Inventions originated from the West, and is adapted from the European intellectual and rhetorical commonplace of the Three Great (or, more properly, Greatest) Inventions . This commonplace spread rapidly throughout Europe in the 16th century and was appropriated only in modern times by sinologists and Chinese scholars . The origin of the Three Great Inventions--these being the printing press, firearms, and the nautical compass--was originally ascribed to Europe, and specifically to Germany in the case of the printing press and firearms . These inventions were a badge of honor to modern Europeans, who proclaimed that there was nothing to equal them among the ancient Greeks and Romans . After reports by Portuguese sailors and Spanish missionaries began to filter back to Europe beginning in the 1530s, the notion that these inventions had existed for centuries in China took hold . By 1620, when Francis Bacon wrote in his Instauratio magna that "printing, gunpowder, and the nautical compass...have altered the face and state of the world: first, in literary matters; second, in warfare; third, in navigation," this was hardly an original idea to most learned Europeans . </P>

What were two inventions from asia that changed western europe