Jet engines can be dated back to the invention of the aeolipile around 150 BCE. This device used steam power directed through two nozzles so as to cause a sphere to spin rapidly on its axis.] So far as is known, it was not used for supplying mechanical power, and the potential practical applications of this invention were not recognized. It was simply considered a curiosity. br Jet propulsion only literally and figuratively took off with the invention of the rocket by the Chinese in the 13th century fireworks but gradually progressed to propel formidable weaponry; and there the technology stalled for hundreds of years.