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Where does Fireworks come from?
Fireworks come from China. People there first made bangs by throwing bamboo into fires, then packed gunpowder into tubes, and under the Song dynasty (960–1279) they made the first firecrackers and the first fireworks displays.
From burning bamboo to gunpowder
During the Han dynasty (202 BC – AD 220), people in China threw bamboo stems into fires to make them burst with a loud bang. Gunpowder came much later: the first confirmed reference to it is a formula from 808, in the Tang dynasty, and it was most likely discovered by accident in experiments with medicines. Its Chinese name, huoyao, means 'fire medicine'. Gunpowder packed into small containers was then used to copy the sound of burning bamboo, and both were called baozhu, 'exploding bamboo'.
Firecrackers of the Song dynasty
Under the Song dynasty, people made the first firecrackers: tubes of rolled paper filled with gunpowder, with a fuse. They also tied them together into long clusters called bian, 'whip', so that they went off one after another. Ordinary people could buy firecrackers from market vendors, and there were grand displays too. A memoir of the old Song capital, with a preface dated 1147, describes a large fireworks show that the army put on in 1110 to entertain Emperor Huizong.
Colour and the road west
Around 1280 Hasan al-Rammah, a Syrian writer, described rockets and fireworks in terms suggesting he learned of them from Chinese sources. Europe was making fireworks by the 14th century, and they were popular there by the 17th. Chinese makers were famous for colour: a 1753 Chinese book tinted flames green with copper acetate. Around 1797 the English geographer John Barrow wrote that the Chinese 'secret of cloathing fire' in many colours was the chief merit of their fireworks.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org › Fireworks ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › Gunpowder ↗ · ssec.si.edu ↗
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