The Persians in the years A.D. 500–900 and the Chinese in A.D. 1200 were the first civilizations to employ grain mills and water pumps powered by wind.
Daniel Halladay, a Connecticut-based inventor who started creating windmills in 1854, created the first windmill to be produced in the country.
The original windmills were built with four blades and a tail, or weathervane, that turned with the wind.