Fireworks (Reading Article Friday T4, W5)

History of Fireworks!

A firework can be defined as a device that uses combustion (burning) or an explosion to produce a visual or audio (sound) effect. The earliest fireworks can be traced to around 2,000 years ago in China. People then are said to have roasted bamboo stalks. The stalks turned black and sizzled. The air inside the hollow stalks would explode. Baozhu is a Mandarin Chinese word for firecracker. It means "exploding bamboo."

Years later, Chinese chemists took fireworks a step further. This happened sometime between 600 and 900 A.D. People filled bamboo shoots with gunpowder. They threw them into a fire pit. Steel dust or iron shavings were added to make them sparkle. In China, these firecrackers were often used in celebrations.

There are different shapes of fireworks and each shape has its own name. The skill of creating and setting them off is called pyrotechnics. The word comes from Greek words that mean fire and art. Historians believe that fireworks were invented before gunpowder, that gunpowder came as a result of experimenting with different quantities of the same substances in the mixture. Thus fireworks existed before guns!

There are three main components that are required which are an oxidizer (fire needs oxygen to burn), a fuel (the something that is burning, in this case gunpowder), and a chemical mix to produce the colour. Sodium salts give a deep yellow colour; calcium gives us red, barium gives us green and copper burns green and blue. Magnesium and aluminum can provide an electric-white effect. Blue is the hardest firework colour to produce. This is the reason why blue-colour fireworks aren’t as bright as the other colours.

Fireworks were manufactured in Italy as early as 1540. By the 1600s they were widely used in England and France. Most of the fireworks we  know today, such as display rockets, aerial bombs, pinwheels (or Catherine wheels, on the left), and fountains were used in this early period. For centuries the Chinese set off fireworks to celebrate their holidays. In the 19th century the United States adopted the custom of shooting off fireworks to celebrate Independence Day. In Great Britain they celebrate Bonfire Night (we call it Guy Fawkes Night) on November 5th to celebrate the day when a man, named Guy Fawkes, tried unsuccessfully to blow up the Houses of Parliament, and kill King James I on November 5th, 1605.

Fireworks have helped to create many useful, and life-saving products. Railroad trains, trucks, and cross-country buses carry red flares, which are placed behind broken-down vehicles to stop crashes. Airplanes carry parachute flares to light up the ground when they are forced to land at night. Rockets, Roman candles, and blue Bengal lights were long used as signals between ships at sea and from ship to shore, and rockets still are used as signals of distress/trouble. In World War I, army divisions sent information to the artillery (bombers) behind them by sending up rocket signals. In World War II, rockets shot from airplanes, ground vehicles, and ships were used by the soldiers fighting on both sides.

Unfortunately, the careless handling of fireworks causes many injuries every year and even occasional deaths. Property damage in the United States may exceed more than 1.5 million dollars annually. The week of Guy Fawkes night this year in New Zealand there were more than 50 firework related injuries. Fireworks are also known to scare household pets, so next time you’re thinking of setting off fireworks, think of the poor animals who think the world around them is exploding!