Beautiful balls of fire and color.

Fireworks are so old that no one knows who first invented rockets and when! The credit for inventing pyrotechnics or rocket-making skills is usually attributed to the Chinese, because they made fireworks hundreds of years before Europeans. According to some assumptions, the first fireworks were created quite by accident, in ancient China, so it is precisely this invention that is almost 2,000 years old, and the Chinese are responsible for it.

During the early 9th century, alchemy was very popular in China. The goal of alchemy was to create a substance that would prolong life or even deceive death. Alchemy never discovered this substance, but it did make an explosion that changed the way holidays are celebrated all over the world. An explosion requires only three components: some kind of fuel, something that will break the chemical bonds in the fuel, and temperature. Not knowing exactly what would happen, the creator of the first fireworks mixed coal with potassium nitrate, which was then often used to store food. With a little heat, the powder he created exploded.

Records of that experiment revealed that during this explosion, the house in which the experiment took place burned down, as well as the hands and face of the alchemist who made the first fireworks ..

Monk Li Tian is credited with creating the firecrackers. He lived during the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279), near the city of Liu Yang, in Hunan Province. He made them from a young bamboo stalk filled with gunpowder.

They burned them at the beginning of the year, right after the reception, and the role of the explosion was to drive away evil spirits and bring happiness. Thanks to him, the creation of fireworks is associated with the creation of gunpowder.

Today's rockets as we know them began to be used only after the invention of gunpowder and the improvement of chemistry as a science. The basic materials used in making rockets are potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal. All this is ground together into a fine powder. Then, in order to achieve a spectacular effect, other substances are added to the mixture, for example lead nitrates, barium and aluminum. In fireworks, colors, which mean so much in terms of beauty and final effect, are obtained by adding various metal salts, such as red stornium, green barium, sodium yellow and copper blue. The use of iron shavings achieves splashes of sparks that burst in height.

The main ingredient that gives color to (today's) fireworks is a pyrotechnic star. It consists of 5 main components:

fuel, which allows it to burn,

oxidant, which provides the oxygen needed for combustion,

paint-producing chemicals, a binder and a chlorine donor that enhances the color of the flame.

During the Renaissance, pyrotechnics schools were established in which you could improve your skills as a so-called fireworks artist. Schools were spread all over Europe, but most of them were in Italy.

Italy has become famous thanks to its fireworks creations in various colors. In 1830, the Italians first mixed several types of metals and other ingredients. Thanks to that move, other light effects in color were created later, as we see with today's fireworks.

Many types of varomet are still made in a very similar way as a few hundred years ago. Of course, there are a lot of changes. The development of technology has given us the opportunity for modern fireworks - fireworks today exist in various colors, have the ability to release air under pressure, etc., which at the time could not even be imagined.

In the English tradition, there is the name Bonfire Night, which was created in a very interesting way. Namely, in 1605, Guy Guido Fox participated in the so-called A gunpowder conspiracy in an attempt to assassinate King James I of England. However, the plan failed, and instead of a gunpowder attack, that event was remembered for the beautiful fireworks that were accidentally caused in this accident.

The celebration of the New Year, children's birthdays and celebrations is unavoidable without fireworks.