Lafayette sided with the Colonials not to free us, but to help defete England. We were late into WW1 & WW11 because we are a nation of liberators not conquerors. Not to intrested in the Russians spin on history
The Continental Congress wasn't too concerned with LaFayette's motives. The fact of the matter is that French support helped to establish the United States, and regardless of current attitudes it is a fact for which we should be grateful. Regardless of the reason for French aid the truth is it did free us. Obviously no nation goes to war for entirely altruistic reasons.
You seem to forget that we did not go to war with the Axis powers to free the world; we did so because they declared war on America and launched the first strike.
And as far as the Russian effort in World War II, They turned out to be as bad a regime as the one they and we fought, but the Russian government's, i.e. Stalin's, atrocities don't change the fact that the Russian people suffered more harshly and sacrificed more in the war than any other nation. And you cannot dispute or change the fact that the war would not have been won so readily had it not been for the Red Army.
Stalin was a tyrant, and an a**hole; he even actively supported Hitler in the invasion of Poland, and probably would not have supported the Allied cause if not for Operation Barbarosa. All of that however does not change the fact that the Russians did more than any other American ally to insure the fall of the Third Reich.
You cannot change the facts by simply choosing to ignore them.
As for Black Powder, in simplest terms it is gunpowder as it was originally invented with only slight modification to the manufacturing process and equipment today's BP is still produced as the first batch was. It is composed of Saltpeter(potassium nitrate), charcoal(carbon), and sulfur. Originally the proportions of these ingredints probably varied considerably, and BP was produced as serentine powder in which the ingredients tended to separate over time. Later powder was corned, this was a process by which the ingredients were mixed with water in a slurry. The mixture was then poured into molds and the water evaporated forming bricks of BP which were then ground to the desired granulation. This procedure is still pretty much what is followed today.