Victor Hicks, age 13, of Columbus, Ohio, for his question:
WHEN WERE FIREWORKS FIRST USED?
Fireworks are incendiary devices that explode is colorful displays of sparks and flames. Combined with the bright colors are loud noises and great clouds of smoke that come from a mixture of/gunpowder, saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal. Fireworks are also called pyrotechnics.
Fireworks are usually used as an amusement in the darkened skies. They often mark festive occasions or special holidays.
Pyrotechnics (also known as pyrotechny) is the art of making fireworks. The origin of the practice is not known, but credit usually goes to the Chinese. Historians tall us that the Chinese were producing fireworks displays centuries before they appeared in Western nations.
The Greeks made explosives called Greek fire. Fire fountains were used from time to time for the amusement of the people.
Fireworks weren't used in European countries to any extent until after gunpowder came into general use and the science of chemistry was developed. The first European display is said to have been part of a 16th Century pageant in Italy. The Italians went on to become fireworks masters as they created many elaborate displays during the 17th and 18th centuries.
By the 19th Century the fireworks art had become perfected. There were pieces that could be shot into the air to burst out in colorful designs. Fireworks could produce patterns of waving flags and rushing trains, mimic battles between comic characters and even create portraits of famous people.
To the basic explosive materials, a fireworks manufacturer adds nitrates of lead, barium and aluminum to produce spectacular effects. Colors are produced by adding salts of metals: strontium for red, barium for green, sodium for yellow and copper for blue. Showers of dazzling sparks are made by adding iron filings.
Roman candles are made by stopping the bottom of a cardboard tube with clay or plaster and then placing a layer of gunpowder above this.
Most fireworks use a suitable mixture of incendiary materials in a paper case. The most elaborate and spectacular is the skyrocket, which propels a projectile high into the sky that explodes in a wild display of noise, smoke and colorful lights.
Charcoal is another item that is often added to skyrockets. It gives a rocket a sparkling, flaming tail.
When a rocket nears its highest point of flight, the coarse gunpowder in it ignites a finer charge, and the finer charge explodes. The explosion breaks up the rocket and ignites many small firecrackers in the nose section of the rocket.
Fireworks are sometimes used is the military. Pyrotechnics give an excellent way of signaling at night. The most important military pyrotechnics, however, are smoke screens.