Fireworks
History

The earliest fireworks came from China during the Song dynasty (960–1279). Fireworks were used to accompany many festivities. In China, pyrotechnicians were respected for their knowledge of complex techniques in creating fireworks and mounting firework displays.

During the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), people threw bamboo stems into a fire to produce an explosion with a loud sound. In later times, gunpowder packed into small containers was used to mimic the sounds of burning bamboo. Exploding bamboo stems and gunpowder firecrackers were interchangeably known as baozhu (爆竹) or baogan (爆竿). During the Song dynasty, people manufactured the first firecrackers comprising tubes made from rolled sheets of paper containing gunpowder and a fuse. They also strung these firecrackers together into large clusters, known as bian (lit. "whip") or bianpao (lit. "whip cannon"), so the firecrackers could be set off one by one in close sequence. By the 12th and possibly the 11th century, the term baozhang (爆仗) was used to specifically refer to gunpowder firecrackers. The first usage of the term was in the Dreams of the Glories of the Eastern Capital (東京夢華錄; about 1148) by Meng Yuanlao.

During the Song dynasty, common folk could purchase fireworks such as firecrackers from market vendors. Grand displays of fireworks were also known to be held. In 1110, according to the Dreams of the Glories of the Eastern Capital, a large fireworks display mounted by the military was held to entertain Emperor Huizong of Song (r. 1100–1125). The Qidong Yeyu (齊東野語; 1264) states that a rocket-propelled firework called a dilaoshu (地老鼠; lit. "earth rat") went off near the Empress Dowager Gong Sheng and startled her during a feast held in her honor by her son Emperor Lizong of Song (r. 1224–1264). This type of firework was one of the earliest examples of rocket propulsion. Around 1280, a Syrian named Hasan al-Rammah wrote of rockets, fireworks, and other incendiaries, using terms that suggested he derived his knowledge from Chinese sources, such as his references to fireworks as "Chinese flowers".

Colored fireworks were developed from earlier (possibly Han dynasty or soon thereafter) Chinese application of chemical substances to create colored smoke and fire. Such application appears in the Huolongjing (14th century) and Wubeizhi (preface of 1621, printed 1628), which describes recipes, several of which used low-nitrate gunpowder, to create military signal smokes with various colors. In the Wubei Huolongjing (武備火龍經; Ming, completed after 1628), two formulas appears for firework-like signals, the sanzhangju (三丈菊) and baizhanglian (百丈蓮), that produces silver sparkles in the smoke. In the Huoxilüe (火戲略; 1753) by Zhao Xuemin (趙學敏), there are several recipes with low-nitrate gunpowder and other chemical substances to tint flames and smoke. These included, for instance, arsenical sulphide for yellow, copper acetate (verdigris) for green, lead carbonate for lilac-white, and mercurous chloride (calomel) for white. The Chinese pyrotechnics were described by the French author Antoine Caillot (1818): "It is certain that the variety of colours which the Chinese have the secret of giving to flame is the greatest mystery of their fireworks." Similarly, the English geographer Sir John Barrow (ca. 1797) wrote "The diversity of colours indeed with which the Chinese have the secret of cloathing fire seems to be the chief merit of their pyrotechny."

Fireworks were produced in Europe by the 14th century, becoming popular by the 17th century. Lev Izmailov, ambassador of Peter the Great, once reported from China: "They make such fireworks that no one in Europe has ever seen." In 1758, the Jesuit missionary Pierre Nicolas le Chéron d'Incarville, living in Beijing, wrote about the methods and composition of Chinese fireworks to the Paris Academy of Sciences, which published the account five years later. Amédée-François Frézier published his revised work Traité des feux d'artice pour le spectacle (Treatise on Fireworks) in 1747 (originally 1706), covering the recreational and ceremonial uses of fireworks, rather than their military uses. Music for the Royal Fireworks was composed by George Frideric Handel in 1749 to celebrate the Peace treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which had been declared the previous year.

"Prior to the nineteenth century and the advent of modern chemistry they must have been relatively dull and unexciting." Bertholet in 1786 discovered that oxidations with potassium chlorate resulted in a violet emission. Subsequent developments revealed that oxidations with the chlorates of barium, strontium, copper, and sodium result in intense emission of bright colors. The isolation of metallic magnesium and aluminium marked another breakthrough as these metals burn with an intense silvery light.
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