When the Continental Congress in 1776 passed its motion for independence from Great Britain, John Adams wrote to his wife that the day should be "solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."
In the succeeding years, Adams' prediction bore fruit (though he thought the date to be celebrated would be July 2, the day of the vote, not July 4, the date on the Declaration.) And one of the biggest parts of our Independence Day celebrations is the "Illuminations" - also known as fireworks.
But where do fireworks come from in the first place? The answer lies in Chinese alchemy.
Well, actually, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. The concept of fireworks predates what we think of as fireworks - burning chemicals, rockets, etc. The practice of making fireworks, based on the accounts we have, dates back to the second century B.C.E. in China, when people would burn bamboo to create explosions. (Try it yourself, if your local law allows it. The air pockets in the bamboo create satisfying booms as the bamboo burns.)
But of course, what really made fireworks what we know and love today is gunpowder. Gunpowder was discovered somewhat inadvertently by Chinese alchemists, who were trying to develop an elixir of immortality. If you're not aware, there are three primary components to gunpowder: saltpeter (potassium nitrate), sulfur, and charcoal.
Chinese alchemists have a long tradition of working with all three of these chemicals. Saltpeter is relatively uncommon in Europe, because it's more likely to form at higher temperatures. But it's abundant in China, and records indicate that alchemists were able to determine whether they'd found saltpeter by burning it back in the 3rd century C.E. (Saltpeter turns a bright purple when you burn it, thanks to the potassium.) Saltpeter had been used for centuries prior to that, with its first mentions coming in the second century B.C.E., but it was probably in use in the 4th century B.C.E. or earlier.
The use of sulfur by the Chinese is also ancient. The use of purified sulfur is noted in 2nd century texts, and of course charcoal is abundantly found wherever wood is burned.
The first recorded combination of saltpeter and sulfur comes from the writings of the Chinese alchemist and philosopher Ge Hong in the fourth century C.E. Ge Hong writes of a mixture he made including these two ingredients as well as clays and other minerals. This mixture created a purple powder which the alchemist claimed would turn molten lead into gold (or, more likely, perhaps something that resembled gold.) But obviously, this wasn't gunpowder - it would take a few more centuries for that.
There are records of Chinese alchemists making flammable sulfur-saltpeter mixtures in intervening centuries, but the first record of something resembling gunpowder comes in 850 C.E. in an alchemist text. The mixture described uses honey as a source of carbon instead of charcoal, but it's considered to be the first gunpowder mixture. Charcoal gunpowder mixtures appear in the 10th century and a full formula was published in the 11th.
It was the development of gunpowder that really allowed the fireworks of the country to take off. Gunpowder and its predecessor saltpeter-sulfur mixtures were stuffed into bamboo tubes and lit for an explosive effect. The invention of the gunpowder propelled is popularly attributed to a monk named Li Tian in Liuyang. Liuyang is still a major center of the fireworks industry today, a thousand years later.
Experimenting with fireworks and gunpowder also produced the first rockets. Rockets were used both in battle by the Chinese military and to produce more and better fireworks by propelling them into the air. By this time, the bamboo used in fireworks had largely been replaced by the paper tubes still used for many fireworks today.
It was still a few more centuries before Chinese fireworks came to the West, first trickling its way through the Arab world in the 13th century and from there into Europe. Legend has it that they first made it to the Americas in Jamestown in 1608, but that only has, at best, shaky support.
Regardless, by the 1700s, fireworks were very much in vogue in the American colonies. (To the point where some towns in Rhode Island were already banning private fireworks use in the 1730s. So if your town has a fireworks ban, be aware that this type of law is a longstanding American tradition.) And the use of fireworks to celebrate American independence was first recorded on July 4, 1777.
So tonight, when you enjoy the fireworks display celebrating this country's birth, be sure to raise a glass to Chinese alchemists who were working over a thousand years before that to develop fireworks in the first place.
