A Blast from the Past Continues: The Ongoing Saga on Fireworks

In part one of this article, we traced the origins of fireworks from their very obscure beginnings, most likely in China more than a millennium ago, up to the year 1520 — that’s when the Portuguese returned to China and introduced the invention of the gun to their hosts. The first guns the Chinese saw were the cannons on the Portuguese ships firing salvos in Canton harbor. The black powder that the Chinese invented came back in a new and deadly form.

While European adventurers traveled the world with artillery and rifles, their families back home were beginning to make fireworks as quite a popular method for celebrating events and anniversaries of all kinds. During the Renaissance, Italy and Germany became the centers of invention and innovation in all things pyrotechnic. The Italians produced elaborate fireworks; the Germans stressed scientific advancement. Both developed new and better ways of lighting the sky, and so by the mid-17th century, fireworks were used for entertainment at festivals, ceremonies and public gatherings.

Conspiring against the government
Next year will be the 400th anniversary of one of the most famous occasions celebrated with fireworks. In this case, the celebration is because the intended explosion did not go off according to plan. As the story goes, Guy (or Guido) Fawkes and four co-conspirators hatched a plot to cripple the new government of King James I. Their plan was to dig under the parliament building, causing it to collapse. In the course of their tunneling, they found a cellar under the building being used by a coal dealer. The plotters filled the cellar with black powder charges and other combustible materials and planned to blow up the main parliament building on Nov. 5, 1605, when King James would preside over a meeting of parliament.

Just the day before the British government was to be blown to bits, an anonymous note reached the king with hints of the plot. King James figured out the cryptic clues, and on Nov. 4, the king’s men found the powder-filled cellar and Fawkes himself trying to make an exit. Depending on the version of the plot you favor, Fawkes was either the lead conspirator or the dupe of darker forces lurking in the shadows. Either way, Fawkes and his co-conspirators were ceremoniously and brutally executed. Nov. 5 became “Guy Fawkes Day,” celebrated with fireworks for nearly four centuries as the day the explosion did not go off underneath parliament.

It’s not surprising that the English severely regulated fireworks after November 1605, with the result that the Italians, Germans and others who came to England to put on the fireworks displays began to be perceived as the masters of the pyrotechnic art. Although Guy Fawkes was not successful in destroying the government, the subsequent legal restrictions channeled the development of fireworks out of England and gave pyrotechnic superiority to other countries that lasted for centuries.

Fireworks come to America
In the U.S., fireworks have marked the 4th of July since the first fragile anniversary of the Republic in 1777, when the outcome of the fight for independence was very much in doubt. Early settlers of the Americas brought their love of fireworks to the New World, using pyrotechnics to celebrate holidays and draw crowds for political speeches.

When Francis Scott Key wrote about the “rockets’ red glare” during the War of 1812, he was watching the colors that occur naturally when there are “bombs bursting in air.” Several years after Key’s legendary lyric was written, fireworks formulators began to be able to add color to their displays at will. The discovery of potassium chlorate added brilliant colors to the flash and bang of fireworks. Later in the 19th century, electrochemistry allowed the addition of refined metals to the fireworks formula. Magnesium, aluminum, strontium, barium, copper and other metals added a rainbow of colors to these explosive entertainments.

Learn more about the historical use of fire! Read about the mystery of Greek fire.

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This article was originally published under the title "We're History" in the December 2004 edition of Chemical Engineering Progress magazine. This article was prepared by Neil Gussman, communications manager for the Chemical Heritage Foundation.