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The first, first, first instrument that the piano originated from is the Chinese Ke. The Ke had strings in a wooden box and you had to pluck the strings inside the wooden box.
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One day, Pythagoras was experimenting with musical sounds and mathematics and produced the monochord. They're two types of monochords. One type has one string, hence the name monochord. The other type has many strings and is more like a piano (well actually, not really but more similar then the other type).
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A movable bridge was added to the monochord for more intonation.
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The hammered dulcimer kind of sounds like a piano and has many strings. It uses hammers like a piano... but your the one using the hammers. You can also pluck on the dulcimer and do a lot of other stuff that I don't know anything about.
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The clavicytherium is like an upright harpsichord but does not have hammers like a piano. That's all I know about it.
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The clavichord was invented in the 15th century and kept improving throughout the 16th and the 17th century. The clavicytherium was improved and more strings were added and pins were also added to the keys to allow more vibration, leading to the invention of the clavichord.
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Adaptations of the clavichord led to the introduction of the spinet by Giovanni Spinnetti. It was a longer-stringed clavichord with tangents that pricked the strings using a quill fastened to a jack. Unlike the clavichord, the spinet had no expression or way to manipulate the pressure or strength of the tone.
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The harpsichord was introduced as an offshoot of the spinet. The two main reasons why the harpsichord is not a piano is because it can only play one volume, and that its strings are plucked by plectrums, and on the other hand the piano's strings are plucked by hammers.
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Around the end of the 16th century the harpsichord was improved and got a double keyboard. (shown in picture)
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In the 1710's (specifically in 1707) hammers for the harpsichord were designed by Bartolomeo Cristofori, credited as the inventor of the piano, who was unhappy with the harpsichord because you could only play one volume.
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The clavicembalo col piano el forte, which may be sound complicated, literally means harpsichord that can play soft and loud in Italian, and the name was later shortened to piano.
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The square piano was created by Johannes Zumpe, in London, England. (The square piano doesn't really look like a square.)
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Upright pianos were introduced and were liked by some for its "amazing sound quality" ( which is a big opinion).
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New piano styles have kept getting better and the pianos from a long time ago now have evolved into the modern pianos we see today.
