From the Vault: The Invention of Fireworks

Fireworks are a staple of celebrations around the world, but where does this invention come from and what’s the basic chemistry of their combustion? In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe light the fuse and find out. (originally published 6/23/2020)

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today is Saturday,
so it's time to go into the old vault. This
episode originally published on June and it's about the invention
of fireworks. Yeah, yeah, this is this is ideal since
tomorrow in the United States it's July four, a time
when there are traditionally fireworks going off in the sky.

(00:28):
So here, let's enjoy. Let's explore the history and the
origin of fireworks. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
production of My Heart Radio. Hey are you welcome to

(00:48):
Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb
and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're doing fireworks. Robert, did,
did you grow up in a place where, whatever the
actual law, as you at least thought that fireworks were
illegal and that setting them off in your yard might
summon the police. No. I I grew up in places

(01:10):
where it seemed that fireworks were just part of life,
and you could just go out and play with a
bunch of firecrackers in the afternoon by yourself, and it
wasn't any big deal, you know, strap them to g
I Joe there in um build little volcanoes out of
dirt and then blow them up to get some scotch
tape and see how many um what bottle rockets you

(01:31):
could uh lash together and still achieve something that would
fly through the air. That sort of thing. So definitely,
when I was a little kid, I had the impression
that using fireworks was illegal. I don't know if it was,
but I think that's because you couldn't buy them in
the county where I lived. So when Fourth of July
or New Year's or whatever was coming up and we
wanted to get fireworks, we had to go on a

(01:51):
road trip up or down the interstate to one of
the more lawless evil counties where you could go to
Big Daddy's Firecrackers, or you know, one of these other places.
I remember when I was a kid one time buying
a you know, using my little allowance money to buy
a firecracker that was very exciting looking because it was

(02:11):
shaped like a tank. It was made of cardboard, and
I thought, now this thing is going to be like
a piece of mobile artillery. It's going to roll around
and shootout stuff. I recall, it didn't really do much
and It was one of my earliest experiences of spending
money on something expecting it to be great and it
being a total flop. I remember being really impressed with

(02:33):
like the tanks and the little sort of novelty items
because basically we when Fourth of July or New Years
would roll around, they'd set up a tenant for a
couple of tenants in town in the place where I
grew up, and and you know, they would sell the
fireworks there. I always wanted to get things like the tank,
but generally a parental or grown up uh unit that

(02:53):
was president would would say, no, no, no no, that's that's
a waste of money. You want something that goes up
in the air and blows up my my fond its memory.
I remember, I think my grandparents got this. One was
one that went up, exploded and dropped tiny parachute men
out of it, Like yeah, man, and that was that
was crazy. That was awesome because it's dropping something. Then
you then find that's not just total garbage. I mean,

(03:16):
it's essentially garbage, but not total garbage. No, that's great
because then you strap a firecracker to that army man
and up Yeah, I guess, um, But then I also
remember being really impressed by the ones that looked like
actual rockets. The more rockety, the better, right, And I
distinctly remember talking my my parents into getting this this

(03:36):
one rocket and then we we we brought it home,
and as it turned out, one of the problems with
this particular rocket is it's supposed to have a launching rod,
you know, like a rod that sticks into the ground
that ensures that it takes off in a you know,
a with a straight skyward trajectory. That rod had been
misplaced prior to purchase, so it did not have one.
So we set this thing off and it instead of

(03:58):
going straight up into the sky and exploding, it went
straight up and made a turn and then went through
a a a narrow gap in the sliding glass door
of our house, and it hit my uncle in the face.
Fortunately didn't like blow up in his face or anything,
but like, you know, kind of puncture his cheek a

(04:19):
little bit, and then like skittered around on the carpeted
floor shooting sparks everywhere. Uh so that was exciting. Did
you get to keep playing with fireworks after that? Uh? Yeah,
I guess it did inspire me to be a little
maybe it was a little more careful after that, and
I certainly didn't get into the total recklessness of you know,
people launching roman candles at each other, that sort of

(04:40):
thing that you hear about. I was generally it was about, Yeah,
you hear about or her horror stories about but or
that your friends did in high school. Yeah, for me,
it was just firecrackers and bottle rockets, so you know,
low level and firework ammunition here, not getting into like
cherry moms and so forth. I have personal stories about

(05:02):
firecracker use in high school that I'm just not going
to share on the podcast because I do not want
to inspire imitators and and have kids get body parts
blown off. Yeah, I have to say as a parent,
I certainly am far more protective when it comes to fireworks. Hey,
I'm not like super into them as an as a
grown up, um, I like watching professional fireworks every now

(05:24):
and then, But then again, I'm not going to really
go out of my way to see them. If they're around,
I will look up, you know. And I'm I'm more
protective of my son, like I don't. I don't really
like the idea of him even playing with fireworks to
the degree that I did growing up. Well, you know,
one safe alternative that has always puzzled me is one
of the most bizarre genres of home media that I've

(05:46):
ever seen. I recall seeing these, I think in the
gift shop area of a cracker barrel and DVD's of
fireworks displays. Oh man, I only vaguely remember seeing these.
I never watched one, that's for sure. Yeah I didn't either,
But I'm just wondering, what, So does somebody buy this
DVD and take it home and just put it on.

(06:06):
It's like, yeah, I just want to watch some fireworks
in the living room, I guess, you know. I mean,
is it that different from watching the Hearth on Netflix
every Christmas? I think it's somewhat different. I mean, and
neither one's going to give off heat the way that
it would in reality. But you know, a real fireworks display,
you sort of feel the sound. There's this booming thing,
and and it's live, so you're usually experiencing it along

(06:29):
with many other people who are celebrating something. Just having
one on the TV, I don't know that. I feel
like you get closer to the reality of a fire
burning in your fireplace with a fire on the TV. Yeah,
probably so, probably so. Uh then again, I do I
do know that they televise, or at least in the past,
they would televise some of these big fireworks shows and

(06:51):
and I remember I remember those being on TV when
I was a kid. Yeah, I guess so, so as
as everyone can guess. Here we are talking about fireworks today.
This is going to be one of our Invention themed episodes.
Are an exploration of the origin of fireworks, which is
a fascinating story that I think a lot of us
probably know, like the broad strokes of it. I think

(07:13):
a lot of people are probably at the very least
vaguely aware of the Chinese origins that we're going to
be discussing here. But even just the Chinese origins of fireworks,
it's it's just such a wonderful tale, full of mystery
and magic and and also goblins. And then likewise, when
we get into the European history of it as well,
there is a lot of magic and mystery there as well. Totally,

(07:36):
So we're not going to run through the entire history
of pyrotechnology here, but suffice to say that the human
ability to manipulate, sustain, control, and produce fire is key
to technological advancement as a whole. I mean, it's just
difficult to overstate the importance of fire mastery in human history.

(07:57):
It's not just key, it's the master key. It's the
thing that unlocks almost everything else. Again, there's a reason
that broadly historical technological regimes are characterized in terms of
metal working, like what types of things you could make
tools out of, And you couldn't really have metal working
without fire, That's right. If you want a more detailed

(08:19):
breakdown of sort of like the basic fire technology history
of humanity, check out our what was it? A three
part series we did on the match stick for invention?
Our our other show which has now been folded back
into this show, but all those episodes about the match
stick are still available for your listening. Yeah, the fire
extinguisher too. We talked to us, right, Yeah, we kind

(08:39):
of could we continue? So it's ultimately more like a
six part journey through uh, some major moments in pyrotechnology.
I feel like this show is maybe against our wishes,
revealing some freudy and preoccupations going on in both of
our brains, but with explosive fireworks. Yeah, we can't stop
thinking and talking about firecrackers, fire setting fire to stuff. Yeah, yeah,

(09:02):
I guess so. Well. Also, we're coming up on July four,
and I think that was one of the main issues
here too, is we've been talking about doing a fireworks
episode forever and then finally um Work Ascid asked us, Hey,
do you have anything in the catalog that's July four themed?
And we're like, well, no, not really, but we've been
wanting to do fireworks, so here we are. So one

(09:23):
of the things that we touch on in those pyrotechnology
episodes is that, in many ways, the campfire itself, the
longstanding and important aspect of a human culture, is in
itself an ancient laboratory, a place where humans experimented with
the addition of various fuels and substances to learn what burns,

(09:43):
what doesn't burn, and sometimes what burns really well or
what combusts. You know, I didn't think of this until
just now, but this is also bringing to mind the
recent episodes we did about buildings made out of mammoth
bone that we're found in what is now Russia and Ukraine.
But in this ancient Ice Age culture, and a big
part of that culture seemed to be based around the

(10:05):
burning of bones as fuel, something we wouldn't even normally
think of as possible. Yeah, exactly, Like bones are one
example of of a of a combustion uh source that
that has played an important role in human history. Another one,
of course, is dung um. Some some listeners, particularly some cultures,
may not be aware of just how important dung has

(10:26):
been and still is in many cases as a fuel.
You know, you can almost still feel the instinct in yourself,
or at least I can. Whenever you are sitting around
to fire and you have some kind of novel item,
there's almost this primordial urge to just see what it's
like if you just throw that in the fire. What
does it look like when it burns? What does it do? Yeah?
I see that with my son especially. We recently were

(10:49):
putting up. We were we had some tomato plants and
we're like, oh, well, let's get some sticks to brace
these suckers, and then we realize, oh, no, the last
time we had a fire in the backyard, the boy
burned everything, like every every piece of dry wood was consented. So, oh,
I sympathize. So it shouldn't come as any surprise then
that there there are. You know various accounts of pre

(11:12):
fireworks substances and materials that would combust or burn in
a certain way that was notable. And one of the
really key examples here that is central to the origin
of fireworks is bamboo. Now, bamboo, I think everyone's familiar
with bamboo, but it is a hollow hearted grass. It's
especially common in East Asia, but you'll find it throughout

(11:32):
the world's tropical regions. Now, I know many of you
have enjoyed this exact experiment. Uh, And if you haven't,
I suggest you try it the next time you have
a campfire that, if at all possible, dry bamboo can
burn quite readily, and in some cases the drying out
process causes those hollows in the bamboo to crack open,
but other times there remains a sealed pocket of air

(11:55):
in there. So if you throw the bamboo into the fire,
the heat will cause the air within that hollow to expand,
and it will expand enough that it pops and produces
a startling bang when it explodes. I've never done this personally,
but now I really want to. Yeah, it's it's hermendous
fun I mean it. We can well imagine that this

(12:16):
was one of the key attractions. It's like, we put
this into the fire and it's it's it's alarming, it's entertaining,
it's uh, you know, it's it's raising your your awareness. Uh.
It's something that I think, you know, we can when
we experience it. We're experiencing the the primal experience of
burning bamboo as well. Now, this property of bamboo is
something that has been recognized since ancient times. Yes, absolutely, um,

(12:41):
you know. It also brings to mind another interesting idea
that we recently discussed in our Phartonomicon episodes, um Mary
Roach and her her book what was it? Uh gulp.
I believe she has this conversation with the University of
Alabama's Stephen Secor about snakes, and he has this theory

(13:01):
that uh hypothesis, rather that perhaps the myth of fire
breathing dragons has some origin in dead constrictor snakes bloated
with prey bring being brought to the fireside, and then
a post mortem exhalation of stomach gases ignites the flames,
that makes the flames roar up um, which you know,

(13:22):
I don't know if there's a whole lot of evidence
for that, but it was an interesting idea. Yeah, highly speculative,
but I like it. Yeah, and it gets again, it
kind of touches in the same area that we're touching
on here with bamboo. Uh, the idea that this inevitable
amusement to be had in burning it in the fire.
So it would it would seem impossible to truly date
how far back this practice goes of observing that bamboo

(13:44):
pops in the fire. But given the necessary components, you know,
and the obvious lack of archaeological evidence, we have to
consider that it goes like pretty much all the way
back in UH, as far as there have been peoples
around bamboo that are capable of producing fire, and in
Chinese history, we at least can consider it as long
as we've had Chinese writing and UH, and that is

(14:05):
where we see some some you know, early evidence that
this was an established thing. So I was reading some
writings by um Hiwang Yuan of Western Kentucky University where
he's a professor of library science, but he's also a
guest professor of the Foreign Languages College at Nankai University
in China, and he's written several books on Chinese proverbs
and legends. In two thousand eight, he wrote a piece

(14:27):
on Chinese fireworks, and he points out, uh that what
we're talking about here is bao jou, which is exploding bamboo,
like that's the word for it, and it later becomes
used for fireworks, And he points to a few early
mentions of of this sort of thing. He points to
the Tu song dynasty writer Wang and Nan Shi, who

(14:47):
lived ten twenty one through tight six, who wrote a
poem in which one of the lines translates as follows, quote,
amidst the crackling of exploding bamboo, a year is gone
in the warmth of a spring breeze, we drink the
wine of suzu. Not to me, that's availing itself of
multiple interpretations when the year is gone amidst the crackling

(15:09):
of bamboo. Is that because crackling bamboo is meant to
signal the turning of the new year? Or is it
that a year is gone in a flash as as
fast as as bamboo cracks. Yeah, it's nice. There's some
wonderful poetry to it. That's certainly it does seem to
be describing, uh, you know, whatever it's can get alluding to,
you know, metaphorically. It is also alluding to the Chinese

(15:30):
custom that the New Year Spring festival celebration of burning
bamboo to create loud, startling noises as a part of celebrations.
This was actually making me wonder about the linguistic conceptual
history of exploding, or the idea of an explosion. Before
a culture had combustible chemicals like say, black powder, would

(15:55):
the culture have had a concept or a word that
means exactly what explode means to us today. I'm trying
to think what other chances to observe natural explosions would
have been. Obviously, bamboo seems like a good one, but
what beyond that? You can think of volcanic eruptions, But
that wouldn't be something that people observed often enough you

(16:19):
would think that to have its own dedicated word for it. Uh.
And it seems to me like many early writings about
chemical combustion actually use words related to other, much more
common natural phenomenon that aren't exactly explosions, things like thunder
and lightning. Yeah, because I guess my mind does instantly
go to things that are more I guess a bursting erupturing,

(16:43):
for instance, um, the popping of a of of of
a pimple or or a blister, or or some sort
of you know, skin ailment, or the bursting of say
a blood filled kick, that sort of thing. But those
are again it's more of a bursting or erupturing and
and I would you know, we wouldn't necessarily compare it
to an exploding. Likewise, if you were doing something with

(17:04):
say bladders of animals that have been inflated with air
or water and then you're bursting them in some fashion,
it's still probably a different thing than just explosion. I
can imagine that with the bladder, because it seems like
the important phenomena are the ones of like suddenly relieving
large amounts of pressure with a sound or some kind

(17:25):
of some kind of like tactile blasts that you can feel. Yeah,
and you're just not going to get that with a
with with a blood filled tick or with a pimple.
I mean, if you could, that'd be pretty impressive. Yeah,
I mean, it's kind of a mental popping sound, but
it's not really an audible sound. It's just more of
an experience. Um. And then again we're probably to what
extent or are we thinking about explosions when we engage,

(17:48):
and you know, it's like the the the the idea
of the explosion then informs how we're thinking about rupturing
and bursting. Yeah, so um I mentioned there was another
um bit of poetry here that Yawn refers to. He
refers to writings in the Book of Songs, one of
the five classics of Chinese poetry, said to be compiled

(18:08):
by Confusus himself, and this is from the late Western
Joe dynasty, which would be ten s b c E
through seven seventy one b c E. And it translates
as follows, how goes the night? It's not yet midnight,
but the ting lao is already blazing. So King Lao
apparently refers to a kind of torch made of bamboo,

(18:29):
and as it burns, it makes these crackling, perhaps popping noises.
So it's an upgrading of the bamboo popping effect into
a different sort of pyrotechnic device, not just desultory poking
into the fire with a piece of bamboo such that
it pops, but making a torch that is designed to
pop as it burns. Yes, that's that's my understanding of it. Yes,

(18:51):
it's easy to simply extrapolate our modern enjoyment of such
pops and bangs to ancient people's. And I do think
it's perfectly fair to assume this is a large part
of it. You know, like a startling sound is amusing
and uh, you know, you start, you're scared for a second,
and then you're relieved and you're laughing like that's I
think that's just part of the universal human experience, and
it's been that way for for a very long time. Yeah,

(19:14):
I'm reminded of the psychological attraction people have to popping
bubble wrap. Why do people like doing that so much?
I think we hypothesized in a previous episode of Invention
that it might have something to do with grooming instincts maybe,
but back to pimple popping and tick bursting, right exactly.
But I think part of it also, especially when you
see children do it, it seems a little bit less

(19:35):
like anxiety relieving grooming behaviors with them and more like
a game of Jack in the Box or Pop goes
the Weasel or Peek a Boo or something. It's just
repeatedly startling yourself with the sound and enjoying it absolutely.
And so I think it again, it's perfectly fair to
say this is a large part of what we're talking
about here. But another part of the tradition is the

(19:56):
use of loud noises to frighten a way uh speared
it's or monsters. Uh. The more recent version of this
is the idea of frightening away the New Year's beast,
the nun Shao. Now there's some discussion about whether this
is actually, you know, how how old this tradition goes back.
There's some that say that it's essentially a recent tradition

(20:18):
that's popped up. And this gets into you know, some
of the the Chinese New Year celebrations that most of
us are familiar with seeing, you know, the idea of
like a lion dance taking place and firecrackers going off,
that sort of thing. But it also correlates to an
ancient tradition that Juan discusses, the shan Jao. According to
the Han dynasty classic The Book of Gods and Spirits,

(20:41):
these strange creatures would harass camp fires in the night,
and they were also said in some traditions to carry
a disease that could cause chills and fevers. So what
you did is you use bamboo, firewood because that would,
of course, uh pop at regular intervals and create these
frightening noises that would keep the monsters, spirits, creatures, whatever

(21:02):
you want to call them, away from your fire. So
it is not just amusing to have exploding bamboo around,
but it's also somewhere between a real repellent of maybe
some kind of creature that would threaten your campfire, or
at least imagined as some kind of apotropaic magic to
keep the demons away. Yeah, exactly. So. So obviously, quite unexpectedly,

(21:25):
goblins were popping up in the research, so I decided
to look a little deeper. Um. One of one of
the sources we came across as a book by Richard
von Bland titled The Sinister Way, the Divine and the
Demonic and Chinese religious culture. And in it, uh he
says that shan zhao sometimes translated as mountain goblins uh

(21:45):
and described as being ape like in various ways. Uh.
And he says that basically these are quote a class
of petty demons, change link spirits inhabiting the wild mountains
and forests. Yeah. Over all, he seems to characterize them
as a kind of a very classic type of monster.
Actually the monster that in that embodies the chaos of

(22:07):
the wilderness as opposed to the order of civilization. Yeah,
and of course you see this in European traditions. You
see this, uh in cultures around the world, right, I mean,
the darkest is frightening. The wilds are frightening, especially if
they're not your wilds. And that's something that he points out.
Von Glan points out that after the loss of northern

(22:28):
China to foreign conquerors in three seventeen, the Chinese rulers
were displaced to the south, where they encountered a dense,
humid subtropical environment along with rugged mountains, along with new
wildlife and native people's. So he says that this was
to to the rulers of that have that had come
down from northern China, this was a place of barbaric peoples,

(22:51):
of savage spirits and uh. And thus you see that
it may be strengthening predispositions for this sort of folkloric motif.
Though then again, I wonder how much um the idea
of like mountain goblins that are considered somewhat humanoids, somewhat
ape like, might have been inspired by encounters with actual

(23:12):
wildlife like I know, of course, gibbons traditionally occupied much
of ancient China and there, and there's a lot of
consciousness of gibbons in Chinese culture and poetry. Yeah, absolutely,
um and and apparently some some reads on the sheng
z Au certainly point towards, you know, actual apes as
being at least part of it, you know, because indeed,

(23:34):
what do we know about a lot of monkeys species
in the monkeys, especially in the wild, is that they
can be curious, they can be um, they can be
some a manner of a pest when they encounter human activities.
And uh, you know, I don't know how much we
should read into the idea of illness being caused by them,
because you see this a lot with mythical creatures, right
and in mythical and magical beings and magical people's they

(23:57):
cause disease their way of explaining illness in a pre
germ theory world. But at the same time, you know,
obviously one can transmit illnesses from uh, wild animals, so
that could potentially be a part of it, I guess. Uh. However,
you do see folks that go in an entirely cryptid
direction with all of this, and they're like, oh, well,
this is clearly uh, you know, we're clearly talking about sasquatches. Here.

(24:21):
Was there an X Files episode about the chen Zio
I don't know. You're the one to tell me about
the whether there's an X Files episode or not. I
don't remember one. But you know, they they turned through
a lot of cryptids over the course of that show.
There's a lot of seasons to fill. At some point
they were even doing the Jersey Devil, so you know,
they were really really rooting around in the bottom of

(24:42):
the bucket. But but that does also point to you know,
you can point to plenty of other cultures that have
some sort of a wild man of the woods kind
of uh creature or multiple creatures in their mythology, like
uh into a certain extent, a number of these could
be inspired by observance, is of ape creatures in the wild? Yeah, sure,

(25:03):
I mean that That's always one of the great mysteries
when you're dealing with mythical beasts is like how what
percent of it is imagination and what percent is inspired
by something people saw, either like you know, seeing a
person and misunderstanding what you saw, or seeing some seeing
wildlife and misunderstanding. Yeah. Now, now Von Glen points out
that there are other things that we're sort of classified

(25:25):
as as also being chan zal in essence. One of
them was this, uh, these entities called the wutong Shin
that I think we talked about in the past on
the show because there in some ways, in some versions
of them are comparable to incubi, demons and European traditions.
But but these are as you often see with with
mythical creatures and beings, and in cultures, the wutong Shin

(25:48):
end up like changing over time and become being more
like gods and being something that should be revered, whereas
uh von Glan points out that the the Chanzhao goblins
just remain untransformed in cultural traditions. They remain these pesky
goblins of the wild. And one issue that I found
rather interesting here that I don't really have a firm

(26:11):
answer on is a is why in some cases, like
a number of cases, they're described as ape like, but
sometimes they have inverted feet and then perhaps in some
cases a single leg. And that made me think of
these other cases of monopeds which are described in various traditions,
including by plenty of the elder. Uh, the notion of
one legged wood spirits that that one might encounter in

(26:34):
the wild. Again entirely speculative here, but I'm I just
wonder if that kind of concept could be inspired by
seeing the different locomotion of apes like gibbons who walk
or climb or hang with the aid of very long arms. Yeah,
or kind of like a a side profile kind of
issue where you're just looking at them from the side

(26:55):
and they're like, oh, they're kind of moving like a
human might move if they had one leg and a
pair of crutches, that sort of thing. Um, So you know,
that's always a possibility one of the uh. And then
also you could also throw in, well, it's a minimally
counterintuitive creature design, right, what I have not two legs
but one. Likewise, you could compare it to congenital deformities

(27:17):
in human beings. But but one interesting hypothesis that I
ran across was from the scholar Carl A. P Ruck,
who proposed that at least some of these might be
connected to Vedic traditions involving soma um, which of course
is uh soma. Soma was this essentially some sort of
drug that is described in ancient texts, and the actual

(27:40):
botanical reality of soma remains something of a mystery, with
explanations ranging from psilocybin to something like a fedra. Okay,
but but Ruck's proposition here is that this idea of
a one armed being in the woods is essentially tied
to a botanical description. So typically he wrote about shade foots,

(28:02):
a fabulous tribe from India who were thought to jump
about on a single foot that could be used as
a paracel uh. And apparently the idea is that what
if this is uh, you know, is an exaggerated um
uh anthropomorphic description of a plant that you would encounter
in the wild. I don't know. I don't have a
firm answer. What's an interesting idea. I'm trying to picture

(28:25):
it a plant that that could metaphorically be described as
a person with one foot who can also use their
foot as a parasol. I guess. I mean, so my
family recently went mushroom foraging and and also just sort
of identifying mushrooms, and you know, we have a number
of them. We have. The Old Man in the Woods
is one of the old men of the woods, is
one of the mushrooms you encounter, you know, the the

(28:48):
chicken or hen of the woods is another. So there's
a lot of the sort of thing that goes on
with the the naming of and certainly the non scientific
naming of various um organisms in the wild. So, you know,
it's seem totally possible, even I don't know that there's
actually any any evidence for it. Uh. If it's it
may just be pure speculation, but it's something to think about.

(29:08):
As for von Glan himself, he ultimately summarizes that that
he thinks, quote, it seems likely that these demonic images
derived from frightening encounters with denizens of the mountains, both
human and ape. Okay, so it might be just sort
of conflating of stories of people encountering gibbons, people encountering
other people they weren't familiar with, and and it turns

(29:30):
into monster stories, but ultimately leads to this consciousness of
a thing you can do to repel the monsters of
the wild, the monsters of the mountains, is that you
can have a bamboo torch that explodes and frightens and
drives them off. Yeah, you know, you may. And and
it's one of those things which it makes sense if
you're dealing with an actual, um, frightening animal or you know,

(29:51):
in the wild, makes them loud noises scared away. But
also it's something you can do against even ideas of darkness,
right more supernatural. This is about about the nature of reality.
You know, I am frightened, but hey, I can make
a loud noise and uh, and that's gonna if that's
at least something there's something actually very instinctual. I think
about the idea of making noise when you are frightened,

(30:14):
especially in the dark or in the wild. You know,
there's the old expression whistling, whistling past the graveyard, um
or you'll just notice it in people when they start
getting scared walking around in a place, like kids sometimes
maybe start talking louder, or start talking to themselves or
snapping their fingers or whistling or humming. We've got this

(30:35):
natural sense that making noises provide security. Yeah. I remember
thinking this while watching Um the movie Yet, the recent
adaptation of Suphan King's Yet you know, where these children
are encountering this horrifying supernatural entity, And it just kept
thinking like, oh, man, if I encountered Pennywise, the clown.
I would just yell at him. I would just yell
at him. He wouldn't even know what to do, you know,

(30:57):
like that, Like that's one way you can diffuse the
supernatural adversary of fear. He didn't expect you to go
on the offensive and and and shout things at him.
So yeah, maybe it's connected to that. I don't know.
Should we take a break and then come back to
talk more about the invention of fireworks. Yes, we'll take
a quick break for the ad goblins and then we'll

(31:17):
be back with more content. Okay, we heard from the
ad goblins, but we we we use some popping devices
to drive them away, and now we're back into the
history of proto fireworks at least. Yeah. So, yeah, we've
talked about proto fireworks, but we're do actual fireworks enter
the picture. Things that we can that we would actually

(31:38):
look at, say on a table and say, oh, look
at that. That's that's a firework, that's a firecracker, etcetera.
So basically, the ideas that the Chinese simply augmented their
fire and noisemaker practices with chemically volatile substances. Once those
substances were discovered, So as we discussed in our our
Mash episodes, sulfur tipped matches were already in use in

(32:00):
China by the sixth century CE. But the key to
fireworks is, of course, uh, this special array of chemicals
that come together to to to make gunpowder. Uh. There's
of course saltpeter, which is potassium nitrate, which was already
being stuffed into bamboo during the Southern Song period of

(32:20):
twelve seventy nine in order to create a more impressive
bang with the bamboo. And between these two periods, potassium
nitrate is said to have emerged from the realm of
Chinese alchemy. Yeah, so maybe we should stop for a
second to look at the chemical properties of potassium nitrate
and understand the role it plays in the development of firecrackers.
So back to the principles of fire. You know, we've

(32:42):
talked about a number of times what does fire need
in order to burn? It needs fuel, It needs heat,
and it needs oxygen because fire is a chemical reaction
in which fuel reacts with oxygen underheat to produce byproducts
of primarily carbon dioxide and water vay bur with other
trace elements and molecules given off and potassium nitrate or

(33:04):
saltpeter can aid in the process of combustion because of
its chemical composition. So potassium nitrate is made out of
one nitrogen atom, one potassium atom, and three oxygen atoms,
and the key to its role in combustion is is
those three oxygen atoms. It is an oxygen donor to

(33:25):
the combustion process. Fire can only burn as fast as
it can access oxygen to react with the fuel. Remember
it's a reaction. Now. Of course, the atmosphere is full
of oxygen, so there's you know, on Earth, it's pretty
easy to get fire going if you have enough heat
and fuel because there's just free oxygen all over the place.

(33:45):
But the surface of a burning log can still only
access so much atmospheric oxygen at once, right, like you
know that it's giving off chemicals and gases as it burns,
of course, and then there's it can really only react
with the oxygen that's sort of touching right along the
edge of the log. So there is there's a limit

(34:06):
to the rate of combustion imposed by the amount of
oxygen available to react. At the same time, potassium nitrate
plays the role of an oxidizer in the combustion reactions.
It provides a ready supply of extra oxygen, so in
the presence of heat and fuel, saltpeter will massively accelerate
the speed at which fuel burns, meaning you get often

(34:30):
something beyond simple burning and something that that qualifies as
an explosion. And this is where the Chinese alchemists come
in now. And now we refer to them as alchemists,
but obviously we're using we have Western alchemy and then
we have Chinese alchemy, and uh they're directly comparable in
a number of ways. I mean, ultimately, you're dealing with
with people on both sides that are attempting to to

(34:52):
figure out what substances do and what they can achieve
in various combinations with each other, right, And these practices
are usually some combination actually of real scientific study of
the material properties of different chemicals and a lot of
magical beliefs mixed in. Yes, And in this particular case,
uh it said that the alchemist in general were attempting
to create pills of immortality or dan, which interestingly involved

(35:16):
mixing up a compound of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal. And
you might be wondering why these particular substance as well.
For instance, sulfur was used for skin ailments, saltpeter for fever.
And uh, the thing is when you hit just the
right percentages here, according to one for for saltpeter, sulfur
and charcoal, it would be like sixty one dirty pot

(35:38):
and seven point six percent put it all together and
you have gunpowder. Yeah, and that gunpowder comes together because
you have mixed up the oxidizer which is the saltpeter,
the potassium nitrate, and the fuel which is the charcoal
and the sulfur. And so once you mix them all
together like that, they can create something that burns suddenly,

(35:58):
very rapidly. Now, in some traditions, some accounts, this discovery
is attributed to a particular individual, Uh Sun sim now,
who would have been born in UH five, and he
was the so called King of Medicine. He wrote um
in the translations of the titles essential Formulas for Emergencies

(36:20):
worth a thousand pieces of gold and then a follow
up supplement to the Formulas of a thousand gold worth,
And even in translation, those are simply marvelous titles. So
it's yeah, that's great. My next novel should be called
the story that's worth a million bucks. There you go,
it's just good marketing. Now, it seems like it's unlikely

(36:43):
that that this individual actually invented gunpowder, but he certainly
recorded its usage, uh in, particularly in a book Optimization
of Alchemical Processes by Sulfuric Method that translation, and it's
it seemingly the oldest known reference to gunpowder, so we
can trace it roughly to his lifetime or you know,
probably before. And interestingly, with its medicinal roots, gunpowder continued

(37:08):
to be used as a curative property in um in
in traditional Chinese medicine for things like ring worm and
various skin issues into the sixteenth century. Yeah, and of course,
saltpeter had many uses outside the creation of saying elixirs
of immortality or or the creation of gunpowder. For example,
saltpeter has long been a preservative for certain kinds of foods.

(37:30):
You know, it's been a preservative for meats. In a way,
it's an elixir of immortality for salami exactly. Now, obviously,
gunpowder has its own enormous history, and it's gonna end
up playing a much bigger role in global affairs in
the centuries to follow. But the Chinese. This is essential,
essential to to point out the Chinese realized its military

(37:53):
potential pretty early on, like during the Tang dynasty, and
it was compiled in Chinese military text by ten four be.
And this is notable because there's something of this this
myth in Western traditions that while a Chinese invention gunpowder
would ultimately require Western ingenuity to take off as a weapon,
the idea that the Chinese invented something but didn't really

(38:15):
understand what they'd invented, and nothing could really be further
from the truth, because they developed rockets, fire arrows, fire lances,
They were using uh long bamboo tubes that were packed
with with gunpowder as early as like eleven thirty two,
and there's evidence of bronze cannons as early as umty

(38:35):
two or eleven eight. Even so, the use of military
gunpowder advancements was very much a part of the Chinese
world at the time, and it's just spread outward from there,
transforming warfare everywhere it went. And it's interesting to consider
the ongoing relationship between recreational fireworks and warfare because obviously

(38:56):
the same chemicals can be used for both. You know,
you can use gunpower or to make a harmless celebratory device,
or to make a cannon that kills people. And it's
interesting how this association has remained in people's minds throughout
the centuries because very often celebratory fireworks, not not always,
but very often are used to celebrate things like military victories.

(39:19):
It's almost like they call to mind the battle that
you're thinking back on and celebrating. Oh yeah, I mean,
we see that in the United States with the Star
Spangled banner, which is talking about stuff blowing up in
the sky, and then especially around the Fourth of July,
it is uh, it is paired with actual fireworks exploding
in the sky. To get back into this world of

(39:40):
fireworks proper, we and in the Chinese origins, we can
see how explosive and combustive substances come together with boo jou,
you know. But let's not forget the other aspect of fireworks,
the part that you you might not think about as
much when you buy a bunch of fireworks, or even
when you set them off at night, but the next
day when you go clean up your yard, uh, you're

(40:02):
going to encounter the reality of all the paper and
cardboard that makes a firework possible. Yeah, it often looks
like there has been like a battle between armies of
toilet paper rolls that just hacked each other to bits. Yeah,
because even today fireworks depend on paper and cardboard. That
tank you were describing earlier was inevitably made out of

(40:23):
cardboard and paper. But as we explored in our recent
two parter on Stuff to your Mind about the invention
of the book, the history of the book, paper was
an expensive luxury in in olden times. Uh, Chinese paper
had already been around for centuries, but but it was
it was a it was a high priced substance. This
was not the kind of thing you would just readily

(40:46):
filled with gunpowder and set off or burn. But then
during the Song dynasty we see the creation of bamboo paper,
which was much more affordable. And so this was finally
paper that was cost effective enough to use in fireworks,
you know, pure fireworks, the kind of fire, not not
just the things that might amuse um, you know, individuals
of great wealth. That's something that could be you know

(41:08):
a little more available to everyone else. Yeah, there is.
There's the main explosive charge, and that's wrapped together with
a timed ignition device. Which is the fuse. It used
to be called the match. Now a number of you
are probably thinking, well, that's a firecracker, and maybe that
is essentially a bottle rocket. But obviously there are plenty

(41:29):
of more elaborate fireworks. I mean, they're just thousands of
types of fireworks today, and and these the more traditional,
these sort of exploding, sparkling, colorful fireworks. This sort of
thing didn't become popular in China until apparently the seventeenth
or eighteenth centuries, during the last Dynastic period of China,
the Queen Dynasty, and one writes that some historians credit

(41:51):
fireworks credit these type this type of firework technology to
a specialist by the name of Le Tai Uh, saying
that he basically invented these for when he was asked
by the Longing Emperor to create something special. And the
story goes that he's, you know, he's been asked to
create some sort of special fireworks. He goes out and
he notices all the colorful sparks that are that are

(42:12):
inside of a blackness shop as the blacksmith is Uh
is pounding away at the steel and he decides to
experiment with different sizes of iron particles mixed with the gunpowder. Yeah,
and this actually does connect to the way that most
colored fireworks displays are created today. They're they're often produced
by by packing fireworks shells with these little pellets known

(42:34):
as stars, that include different types of chemicals, often metal
salts that wind burned create different colors. So, for example,
red fireworks often have some kind of strontium content like
strontium carbonate, or orange fireworks might have calcium chloride and
so forth. Apparently, blue fireworks are one of the hardest

(42:55):
colors to make, and that requires copper or copper chloride content.
But the most common form of fireworks you see in
big festival displays today, you know, not the little firecrackers
you set off in your yard, but big festival displays.
These would generally use what might be known as the
mortar or the shell model. So you've got a core
explosive charge that's usually made out of black powder and

(43:19):
a lift charge. It burns quickly. It it expands and
turns into heat and gas. It shoots it up into
the sky and then it is the fuses time, so
that when it's way up in the sky, it will
reach the center charge and then it will explode and
the shell will be packed with all these little things,
these little explosive balls called stars. And the stars can

(43:41):
be packed in special arrangements, and the arrangements of the
stars within the shell is usually what gives rise to
the patterns of the exploding fireworks. And they're they're actually
artisans who will make special fireworks, like custom packing of
the stars inside to give you the color you want
in the shape of the explosion you want, so you
get hearts, you can get smiley faces or whatever. And

(44:03):
I just got to share, By the way, I found
a Wikipedia article with one of the best sentences in
English I've ever read. I was looking at this the
other day. It's from a Wiki article about pyrotechnic stars,
and the sentence goes, pumped stars are stars that have
been pumped using a star pump. I love that because,

(44:24):
out of context, it's just a sentence that says nothing.
I was trying to think, are there any other ways
ways you could plug words into that sentence structure to
make it work? I was thinking, wait a minute, cooked
rice is rice that has been cooked using a rice cooker.
There you've done quite work, though, because you can cook
rice other ways I don't know, but it's star pump
is as it has only one function and that is

(44:46):
two pump stars. It's true. Alright. On that note, we're
going to take one more break, but when we come
back we'll get into some of the Western tradition of fireworks.
Thank alright, we're back. So I want to to look
at a post on the always Wonderful Medieval Manuscripts blog
on the British Library website. This post is by Alison Ray.

(45:09):
I feel like I've mentioned pieces by this blog on
the show before. I think we discussed an awesome one
they had about anti theft curses in medieval manuscripts. Yes,
it's just a really great blog to follow, and I'm
actually going to reference a couple of posts that I
came across in this episode. So this one talks about
how fireworks have been a popular source of entertainment in

(45:29):
England since as early as the fifteenth century. Ray writes
that the first recorded use of fireworks in England was
at King Henry the Seventh Wedding celebration in fourteen eighties six.
And I have seen this historical claim made all over
the place, and I was trying to find contemporary documentation,
or at least the earliest documentation of it I could,

(45:50):
and I could not find that. It makes me wonder
how modern writers know this, but I assumed that the
British Library bloggers have their their history sorted out, so
I'll try rust him on this one. So the wedding
of King Henry the seventh. King Henry was also known
as Henry Tudor, and his assent to the throne was
the ultimate conclusion of the Wars of the Roses, where

(46:12):
the Houses of Lancaster and York had struggled for control
of England for like three decades. This is chronicled with
some propagandistic slant in Shakespeare's play Richard the Third. Of course,
Richard the Third was the last of the York kings.
Henry had some kind of roughly thirty seventh in line
succession claim to the throne through the line of Lancaster,

(46:35):
but he really came to power through some political maneuvering
and military victory, so his claim was of course through
the Lancaster line. But he apparently got in position for
power by swearing to marry Elizabeth of York, which would
unite the two houses if he was victorious and Richard.
Richard the third had enemies within his own house, so

(46:56):
with some French support, Henry the seventh landed in Wale
in fourteen eighty five. He led an army against Richard's
power center in London. Richard took an army out to
meet him. Henry and Richard's forces fought a conclusive battle
at Bosworth Field on August twenty two, fourteen eighty five,
where Richard was killed in the fighting, allegedly while trying

(47:17):
to like strike deep behind enemy ranks and kill Henry
himself to in the war immediately, and Richard the Third
was apparently the last English king killed in battle. So
after the battle Henry is victorious, He's like, well, okay,
you know, I've basically got a claim to the throne
by succession. I just won in battle, which means God
must want me to be king. So Henry was crowned

(47:39):
at the end of October fourteen eighty five, and true
to his promise, he married Elizabeth of York in January
fourteen eighty six. And this marriage was of greater than
normal political importance. It was more than just the pageantry
of a of a royal wedding, it was in some
ways the symbolic extinguishment of a dynastic war that had

(48:00):
been raging for about thirty years. So why not a
little extra celebration, why not blow something up right. Ray's
blog post also points to a fourteenth century manuscript known
as the British Library royal Ms twelve by five. This
is primarily a medical text. It talks about bodily humors,

(48:21):
herbal medicines, astrology, but it's got a recipe for fireworks,
specifically fireworks, rockets, and the burning glass. And according to Ray,
the opening to the section on the recipes for combustion
begins with references quote to Greek fire, an incendiary weapon

(48:42):
first used by Byzantine forces against Arabic naval fleet steering
sieges on Constantinople in the late seventh century. So I
think it's very interesting that a fourteenth century writer in
English would say, Okay, here's a recipe for making fun
recreational fireworks, but let's introduce it by talking about this
terror weapon. Yeah, yeah, the terror weapon of the of

(49:04):
the Byzantines, which we which we have an entire episode
on in the vault. If anyone wants to listen to it,
but apparently because of the danger posed by fireworks. The
manuscript of companies it's recipes with protective magic spells that
you can use against the fire. Quote. The protective charms
against fire invokes St. Column Seal also known as Columba

(49:26):
or column Kill, and St Agatha for protection. St Agatha
was a patron saint against fire, lightning, and volcanic eruptions. Uh.
Protective charms may seem unorthodox to us today, but they
were often employed in the same manner as medical recipes
and religious prayers. And this is something we've talked about
on the show before. How In in late medieval and

(49:48):
early modern writing in Europe, there's a lot of thinking
that just blends magic and naturalistic or scientific knowledge, as
if there were no real difference between them. You know,
here's how to make an explosive powder. Here's a magic
spell to cure warts. Here's a recipe for toothpaste. Here's
how to know if a witch is giving you a rash.

(50:08):
There's another British Library manuscript profile I wanted to mention,
this one by curator Maddie smith In, and this is
of a seventeenth century book called Pyrotechnica written by a
gunner named John Babbington. And it's the first book in
English that is known to be entirely about how to
make fireworks for fun. It's entirely a book about recreational fireworks.

(50:32):
Now again, this is a much later work, maybe almost
three hundred years later than the previous manuscript. It is
widely attested that Queen Elizabeth the First of England loved fireworks.
And note that Queen Elizabeth the First is different from
Elizabeth of Yorke, who married Henry the seventh. Queen Elizabeth
the First ruled from fifteen fifty eight until her death

(50:52):
in sixteen oh three. I was looking for examples of
her legendary love of fireworks, and I came across a
letter are written by a man named Lanaham describing the
Queen's visit to Kinnilworth Castle in fifty five, and Lanaham
describes it like this quote. On the Sunday night, after

(51:13):
a warning piece or two, there was a blaze of
burning darts flying to and fro beams of stars, correscount streams,
and hail of fire sparks, lightnings of wildfire on the
water and on the land, flight and shot of thunderbolts
all with such continuance, terror and vehemence. The heavens thundered,

(51:36):
the water surged, and the earth shook. Oh man, that's
that's that's that's a great description. Shades of deep purple,
but a great description. Well, you know, it doesn't it
doesn't sound fun. It sounds really scary. Yeah, well, I
mean that's that. Those were my earliest experiences of fireworks,
just being terrified. So, uh, you know, feeling a sense

(51:56):
of care or safe care is kind of part of it, right, Yeah,
that might be true. Of course, Shakespeare mentions fireworks in
a number of his plays, or at least in one
or two plays. There's there's a scene in Love's Labor's Lost, uh,
where a character says, quote, the King would have me
present the Princess sweet Chuck with some delightful ostentation or
show or pageant or antique or firework. And apparently Queen

(52:21):
Elizabeth liked fireworks so much that she commissioned a lord
of fireworks to be in charge of the whole process
that would come to be known as the fire Master
of England, whose assistance were called green men because they
wore hats made out of leaves to protect their heads
from fire and sparks. So Queen Elizabeth had a pyromancer.

(52:45):
That's awesome, and they're running about in these uh in
these green hats but you know, made out of like
green leaves. I mean that sounds very elvin. That reminds
me of what we discussed in the past about these
taboos against wearing green because that is the color of
the fairies. Yeah, totally. I think those ones we talked
about in the past, for specifically uh superstition about young

(53:08):
women wearing them or they would make the fairy princess
is jealous. But yeah, I mean, I don't know, if
you're already dealing with fire and fireworks for a living,
why not put some leaves on your head. But so, anyway,
back to this book Pyrotechnic by Babbington. It describes how
to make a number of regular shell style fireworks of
the kind we were talking about earlier, and how to

(53:29):
achieve different colors. Quote, for stars of a blue color,
a combination of gunpowder, saltpeter and sulfur VIV did the trick.
He then progresses to making silver and gold rain firework
wheels and fizz gigs. A fringe firework that fizzled before
it exploded. Fizz gig, yeah, fiz gig like like in

(53:51):
the Dark Crystal. But beyond that, Babington goes on in
his book to give instructions for these elaborate displays, such
as the drag in the Dragon was a giant wooden
frame in the shape of a winged serpent that was
filled and ornamented with all kinds of combustibles that would
make it breathe fire and spark with fury. And one

(54:14):
popular way of doing this dragon demonstration was to have
both a wooden dragon crammed with fireworks and either a
rival dragon or a figure of St. George, and then
you would make them fight. Uh so this is from
Smith quote in Pyrotechnica, Babington instructs the reader to strap
the dragon and St. George together so that when a

(54:35):
wheel is turned quote, they will run furiously at each other.
They had to be well balanced, as otherwise quote they
would turn their heels upward, which would be a great
disgrace to the work and the workman. It sounds like
more of a disgrace that that sounds maybe like an
extreme safety hazard. You included a shot here of a

(54:56):
woodcut illustration from this book, and uh, I have to
say that, combined with the description this is pure burning man,
like this is the exact spirit of that, sort of
like a large scale pyro technical display. Yeah, exactly, this
is Elizabethan burning man. But so there's a big question here, right,
So if if fireworks were probably invented in China and

(55:18):
we're super popular with the English monarchy by the fifteen hundreds,
how did they make that journey? How did they get
from China to Europe and specifically early modern England. Well,
it turns out that the first known European to describe
the creation of black powder was Dr Mirabilis himself, Roger Bacon. Uh,

(55:39):
the thirteenth century English philosopher proto scientist in Franciscan friar
and Dr Mirabilis I think it means technically wonderful teacher
in Latin, but I like to think of him as
doctor Wonderful. So Roger Bacon was born somewhere in southwest England,
either I think in Somerset or in Gloucestershire, between the
years alve fourteen and twelve twenty. More recent sources places

(56:03):
birth I think around twelve nineteen or twelve twenty, and
he became a brother of the Franciscan order and a
scholar of great esteem and controversy. In the modern day,
he has this reputation for being an early advocate of
something approaching scientific empiricism, the study of nature through observation
rather than just deductive principles about the divine order. Like

(56:26):
maybe you know what if Aristotle says something about nature
and then you do an experiment and discover that Aristotle
is wrong, I think a lot of people might have
the tendency to say, like, well, you know, you must
have done some throng. Aristotle's probably right, aristotles above reproach right, yeah. Um.
So Bacon studied and wrote on language, on mathematics, on alchemy, astronomy,

(56:48):
and optics. You might remember in our Camera Obscura episode
of Invention we talked about how Bacon had read the
works of the eleventh century Arab scholar Ibn al Haytham,
who just scribed the principle of a pinhole camera for
projecting images into a dark room, and Bacon picked up
on this and conducted experiments based on al Haytham's writings.

(57:09):
He apparently built or at least used a camera obscurity
chamber for the purpose of safely observing solar eclipses in
his lifetime. But he also described the use of spectacles
based on glass lenses, which were not yet in wide
use at the time. Uh, He conducted alchemy experiments, and
he speculated on the idea of a flying machine. He

(57:29):
kind of had a reputation as something of a wonder
worker or a wizard. And again this is something that
wasn't unheard of for curious scholars of the medieval and
early modern period that the doctor Faustus kind of image Robert.
You might remember that one of the earliest theories on
the authorship of the Voyage Manuscript attributes the manuscript Roger Bacon.

(57:51):
Though I don't think we ever found any good evidence
supporting this claim. It seemed more like people just might
have thought, well, who's some messed up wizard who could
have created this weird book. I think the dating of
the actual materials put put the book as much later
than than Bacon's life. Yeah, I think if you could
make a better case for John dead, and you could
for Bacon. Right. But Bacon really did apparently advocate experimentalism,

(58:16):
though this doesn't mean he was the kind of like
skeptic materialist naturalist you might imagine today. It seems he
advocated an empirical or experimental approach to both natural science
and alchemy and magic, which you know, I can see
as that might have been a reasonable mindset if you
were living in thirteenth century England. But anyway, he produced
some important encyclopedias of learning, beginning with his Opus Majis

(58:40):
uh and following with some other I think other works
that were called like Opus Lesser or Opus tertiary. Uh.
So where does the gunpowder come in? Well, in the
twelve forties and a couple of his major works, Bacon
just straight up described a recipe for making gunpowder as
seemingly out of nowhere. So I'm going to side a
passage from the scholar Joseph Needham's work on Bacon and

(59:03):
gunpowder in in a in a book called Science and
Civilization in China from Cambridge University Press, nineteen seven, where
he combines a couple of nearly identical passages about gunpowder
from Bacon's Opus Majis or Mayis and Opus Tertium together.
But first we should look at how Bacon introduces this section,

(59:25):
which is he talks about Greek fire. He writes, certain
of these work by contact only, and so destroy life.
Malta or naptha, which is a kind of bitumen plentiful
in the world, when projected upon a man in armor,
burns him up. Similarly, yellow petroleum i e. Oil produced

(59:45):
from the rocks, when properly prepared or distilled, burns everything
it meets by a consuming fire, not extinguishable by water,
and only with great difficulty by other things. Certain inventions
disturbed the hearing to such degree that if they are
set off suddenly at night with sufficient skill, neither cities
nor armies can endure them. No thunderclap can compare with

(01:00:09):
such terrifying noises, nor lightning playing among the clouds, with
such frightening flashes. And then um, and then he goes on.
So this is the combined two passages about gunpowder itself.
We have an example of these things that act on
the senses in the sound and fire of that children's toy,

(01:00:29):
which is made in many diverse parts of the world
i e. A device no bigger than one's thumb. From
the violence of that salt called Saltpeter, together with sulfur
and willow charcoal combined into a powder so horrible a
sound is made by the bursting of a thing so small,
no more than a bit of parchment containing it, that

(01:00:51):
we find the ear assaulted by a noise exceeding the
roar of strong thunder, and to flash brighter than the
most brilliant lightning, especially if one has taken unawares. This
terrible flash is very alarming. If an instrument of large
size were used, no one could withstand the noise and
blinding light, And if the instrument were made of solid material,

(01:01:13):
the violence of the explosion would be much greater. I
love this, and there are aspects of it. Maybe sound
like an overstatement of the power of a simple firework,
but he does get at the heart of it here. Well, yeah,
so this This is Bacon in this work in the
middle of the thirteenth century, describing a totally accurate recipe
for making an explosive charge. Remember, he's got all of

(01:01:35):
the ingredients we talked about in the chemistry section earlier.
He's got the fuel there, he's got the sulfur, he's
got the saltpeter as the oxidizer. He says, you grind
them together, you make a powder out of them, and
that's how you get this charge. And then of course
you pack it into to a roll of parchment, he says,
which parchment, being a rather expensive material, also seems like
maybe not a great use for it. But I don't

(01:01:57):
know what else would you use at the time, I guess,
but he describes it as some kind of pre existing
children's toy without saying where or when this toy would
have been observed, and ends with the unmistakable observation that
this combustible powder could obviously be used for violence, could
be used in warfare. So a lot of historians claim

(01:02:19):
that this is the first time knowledge of black powder
is acknowledged anywhere in Europe. But where did Bacon get
this idea from. He doesn't claim to have come up
with it himself. Instead, he speaks of this toy from
other parts of the world without saying where. So there's
an interesting question of cross fertilization of ideas here. Uh
Needham Joseph Needham, in his book argues that there is

(01:02:41):
ample reason for thinking that Chinese firecrackers and general explosive
chemistry would have made their way back to Europe by
around the time Bacon was writing uh so Needham rights quote.
This description inescapably suggests to us that a sample of
Chinese crackers had come into Roger Bacon's possession and that
he knew what the constituents of the mixture were inside them.

(01:03:05):
By twelve sixty seven, that would have been perfectly possible
for his fellow friars had been traveling back and forth
between Western Europe and the Mongol Court at Kara Koran
since twelve forty five, when the Franciscan John of Plano
Caprini had been sent as an envoy from Innocent the Fourth,
that's Pope Innocent the Fourth to the Great Khan Uh.

(01:03:27):
And then he he documents plenty of other recorded instances
of of Franciscans and Dominicans and other Europeans traveling back
and forth Uh to China to the Mongol Court, and
says that there's just really no problem imagining that someone
maybe maybe knowing of Roger Bacon and saying, hey, he's
this kind of like out there wizard guy. He he

(01:03:49):
would enjoy a chemical curiosity from the other side of
the world. Let's bring some firecrackers back for for doctor
Wonderful to look at you now, this would make perfect sense.
Everything lines lines up here um the Chinese to the
Mongols and then via these uh, these these traveling um
Uh clergyman back to Europe. But I would say it
also seems possible that firecracker chemistry could have entered late

(01:04:13):
medieval Europe through the Arab world, which was a conduit
for a lot of scientific and technological knowledge from both
farther East stand from the Arab world itself, but also
from the lost libraries of antiquity that you know, a
lot of knowledge came back into Europe that way. Yeah,
And I think that's also where we see more of
a direct military stream of ideas from China than down

(01:04:33):
through UH through Central Asia and into the Middle East.
And this instance of of Bacon making this first record
of of a recipe for gunpowder in Europe is interesting
and how it uh feeds into how we should think
about the role of Roger Bacon in in the history
of science and stuff, because despite his reputation for experimentation,

(01:04:56):
which he did of course support in principle, Bacon's actual
gacy in the history of knowledge might just as well
be understood as one of voraciousness for sources of learning
far and wide, as much as it was for actual experimentation.
I mean again, the idea is not that Bacon was
doing chemistry experiments and discovered how to make gunpowder. He

(01:05:19):
probably got a firecracker from somewhere that had been made
based on Chinese technology, and then either was told or
figured out how it worked. But that's a very important
role in the history of knowledge as well, just being
like a great collector of ideas from anywhere you can
get them, that's right. Just simply being exceedingly well read

(01:05:39):
in the time where where relatively few individuals were in
the grand scheme of things. Right, So what came of
Bacon's publishing on the subject of gunpowder. Well, some sources
alleged that later in his life Roger Bacon suffered trouble
of the roughly inquisitional sort that he was imprisoned in
the late twelve seven these by his brothers in the

(01:06:02):
Franciscan Order. From what I can tell, the earliest record
of this imprisonment comes from a work published in the
thirteen seventies, so this would have been around a hundred
years after the supposed events, called Chronicle of the twenty
four Ministers General of the Franciscan's So I think it's
not a hundred percent clear that Bacon really was jailed.

(01:06:22):
We don't have an autobiographical account or anything, but it
is widely alleged, and if he was in fact thrown
into prison, the exact cause of this imprisonment is not clear.
I've seen it alleged in materials by the Royal Society
of Chemistry in the UK that Bacon's description of and
possible experiments with gunpowder were what got him into trouble

(01:06:44):
with the Church, since quote, only God could produce thunder
and lightning. But but I haven't really found any evidence
that looks very good for this specific technological blasphemy being
the cause of his imprisonment. Apparently the historical record is vague.
Were told that it was due to something simply translated
as suspected novelties in his teachings, and I guess it's

(01:07:08):
not out of the question that this could refer to
technology or something like gunpowder, but it could also just
refer to heretical religious beliefs having to do with the
end of the world and the church modeling itself on
the the idea of the poverty of Christ, or it
could have to do with reliance on contemporary prophecies or astrology.

(01:07:28):
Just seems like there are a lot of things you
could get in trouble, a lot of kinds of thought
crime at the time, and it doesn't necessarily need to
be gunpowder that got him into trouble, right, Yeah, there there,
there's so many other established paths to alleged heresy without
having to draw a new line to gunpowder here. But
but of course it wasn't long after Bacon's writings that

(01:07:48):
you really start to see, for example, firearm technology being
experimented within Europe, so so that this was sort of
a a germanal point in the transfer of knowledge about
gunpow out or to Europe. And then, of course we've
already talked about all the ways that recreational fireworks became
popular in the following centuries. It's interesting again we come

(01:08:10):
back to this idea of gunpowder as being one of
these prime inventions. We can look at it and we
can see, like the way it is used to harm
other people, in the way it is used as pure amusement,
the dual nature of of invention. Right. But then also
we're we're talking about how it travels, and so it
seems entirely possible that we're looking in the situation where
it is via novelty that the technology more readily travels

(01:08:33):
to the West. Uh. For a number of reasons, one
of which being that, uh, you know, a culture is
going to be far less willing to share the secrets
of its weaponry. Um, but in terms of its mere enjoyments. Uh,
that that that may travel a little easier. Yeah, I
can totally see that. Uh. You know something that's interesting.
I was reading about fireworks in the contemporary world. Obviously,

(01:08:55):
we know that in the United States people tend to
use a lot of firecrackers and fireworks around the Independence Day,
the fourth of July. But I was reading that even today,
the vast majority of the world's fireworks are still made
in China. I was reading an article on CNN that
reported that as of twenty sixteen, over nine percent of

(01:09:16):
the fireworks used on American Independence Day were manufactured in China.
And there's still all kinds of artisans and crafts people
working in China that like hand make fireworks. That that
is impressive to think about that because generally, when I
think of fireworks, I think of the seemingly mass reduced
examples that that one finds that fireworks stores and firework tents, right. Yeah,

(01:09:39):
and I'm sure, I'm sure some fireworks are mass produced
by a more automated process. But uh, but I was
watching some short documentary segments about actually like companies that
still just have basically people making them by hand using
sort of hand cranked machinery and stuff. Yeah, you certainly
don't see any here in the States. At Farmers Marke.

(01:10:00):
It's where someone is like, these are my fireworks. I
made these, you can watch me make them. I roll
my own Roman candles, etcetera. But maybe I'm just going
to the wrong farmers markets. Who knows. No, this is
an interesting point you raise. Rachel and I were actually
talking about this here at the house, about whether you
know you would have like craft fireworks in the same
way you see, I don't know so much of an

(01:10:22):
artisanal craft movement with other types of products and food
items these days. Yeah, and and would you would one
trust that more or less? I feel like my instinct,
and maybe this is just by virtue of of just
not being um accustomed to it, I feel like I
would be suspicious of of handmade fireworks that just some
random stranger made. Um, I don't know. And maybe again

(01:10:46):
just because it's something I've I've not encountered before. Personally,
I guess it's I want there to be some sort
of like factory standard for my explosives. I guess right.
You want to You want to know that it's been
through the inspections or something. Yeah, and it here that
our intuitions sometimes work that way. You think like a
mass produced item that seems safer, that seems like, uh,

(01:11:08):
that seems like it's been through a process. I would
love to hear from anyone out there who makes their
own fireworks or know someone who does, for any insight
into this, because just I haven't researched this in full,
but just glancing around, it looks like there are advocates
out there for making your own fireworks and and and
even doing so safely. Um, but this is just a

(01:11:31):
whole world I have no exposure to. Well, quick liability check.
We're not advising people to do that. No, no, we
are not advising you to make your own fireworks. Just
if you are, if you already have knowledge of this world,
let us know about it. I would like to learn more.
I would not like to to buy any of them, though.
You know, what I want to know from an expert

(01:11:52):
on fireworks is whether pump stars or stars that have
been pumped using a star pump or not? Yeah, and
then how do you make the star pump? Do you have?
Do you? Is there something like that made from like
residue from pumping a star? I don't know. Can all
be interconnected? The star pump sounds like a wonderful science
fiction device. It does. Yeah, some sort of crazy Kardashian

(01:12:14):
level to technology bust out the star pump. But anyway,
that is it for fireworks for this episode. Hopefully we
you know, provided some additional insight into the the the
origin of fireworks and how this technology then took off
in Western Europe as well. Uh so a little more

(01:12:34):
to think about that. If you find yourself staring up
at the sky in the next few months, in the
next sometime point over the next year, and watching these
various colorful, glittering explosions take place, you know, understanding what
what is chemically going on and also what is uh
culturally and historically going on before you. In the meantime,

(01:12:54):
if you would like to check out other episodes of
Stuff to Blow Your Mind. You can find us wherever
you get your podcasts and where ever that happens to be.
You can help us out by rating, reviewing, and subscribing. Uh.
Those are the three acts of kindness you can do
to help out the show. But also just tell other
human beings about us next time you need to recommend
a podcast, uh, you know, maybe mentioned an episode of

(01:13:16):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind that to coach your fancy.
That's right, be our star pumps anyway, huge thanks as
always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If
you would like to get in touch with us with
feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
topic for the future, or just to say hi, you
can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

(01:13:37):
Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart
Radio because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. Blah blah blow

(01:14:03):
the present joint f Join Part first five