History of the telescope
The earliest known telescope appeared in 1608 in the Netherlands when an eyeglass maker named Hans Lippershey tried to obtain a patent on one. Although Lippershey did not receive his patent, news of the new invention soon spread across Europe. The design of these early refracting telescopes consisted of a convex objective lens and a concave eyepiece. Galileo improved on this design the following year and applied it to astronomy. In 1611, Johannes Kepler described how a far more useful telescope could be made with a convex objective lens and a convex eyepiece lens and by 1655 astronomers such as Christiaan Huygens were building powerful but unwieldy Keplerian telescopes with compound eyepieces.
Telescopic sight
The first documented telescopic rifle sight was invented between 1835 and 1840. In a book titled "The Improved American Rifle", written in 1844, civil engineer John R. Chapman documented the first telescopic sights made by Morgan James of Utica, New York. Chapman gave James the concepts and some of the design, whereupon they produced the Chapman-James sight. In 1855, William Malcolm of Syracuse, NY began producing his own sight. Malcolm used an original design incorporating achromatic lenses like those used in telescopes, and improved the windage and elevation adjustments. They were between three and twenty magnification (possibly more). Malcolm's and those made by L. M. Amidon of Vermont were the standard during the Civil War.