The punkah (fan) was used in India about 500 BCE. It was a handheld fan made from bamboo strips or other plant fiber, that could be rotated or fanned to move air. During British rule, the word came to be used by Anglo-Indians to mean a large swinging flat fan, fixed to the ceiling and pulled by a servant called the punkawallah.
For purposes of air conditioning, the Han dynasty craftsman and engineer Ding Huan (fl. 180 CE) invented a manually operated rotary fan with seven wheels that measured 3 m (10 ft) in diameter; in the 8th century, during the Tang dynasty (618–907), the Chinese applied hydraulic power to rotate the fan wheels for air conditioning, while the rotary fan became even more common during the Song dynasty (960–1279).
During the Heian period (794-1185) in Japan, fans adapted the role of symbolizing social class as well as a mechanical role. The tessen, a Japanese fan used in Feudal times, was a dangerous weapon  hidden in plain sight in the shape of a regular fan, a weapon used by samurais when katanas were not ideal. 
In the 17th century, the experiments of scientists including Otto von Guericke, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, established the basic principles of vacuum and airflow. The English architect Sir Christopher Wren applied an early ventilation system in the Houses of Parliament that used bellows to circulate air. Wren's design was the catalyst for much later improvement and innovation. The first rotary fan used in Europe was for mine ventilation during the 16th century, as illustrated by Georg Agricola (1494–1555).
John Theophilus Desaguliers, a British engineer, demonstrated the successful use of a fan system to draw out stagnant air from coal mines in 1727—ventilation was particularly important in coal mines to prevent  asphyxiation—and soon afterwards he installed a similar apparatus in Parliament. The civil engineer John Smeaton, and later John Buddle installed reciprocating air pumps in the mines in the North of England, though the machinery was liable to breaking down.