The earliest-known references to windmills are to a Persian millwright in ad 644 and to windmills in Seistan, Persia, in ad 915. These windmills are of the horizontal-mill type, with sails radiating from a vertical axis standing in a fixed building, which has openings for the inlet and outlet of the wind diametrically opposite to each other.

History of windmills reaches back 3700 years, all way to the 2nd millennia BC when Babylonian ruler Hammurabi supposedly unveiled his plans to convert the power of the wind using automated network of irrigation windmills that would provide water to his land.

The first practical windmills were panemone windmills, using sails that rotated in a horizontal plane, around a vertical axis. Made of six to 12 sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills were used to grind grain or draw up water. [ 15 ]

First examples of windmills that were created in Europe were of Post Mill design. They appeared first around 11th and 12th century, and they never went out of fashion even when other more efficient designs rose in popularity. Tower Mills Tower Mills represent the most famous windmill design of all time.