Even a little rain wont spoil the fun.As I said yesterday this week is going to be filled with fireworks. In some ways it's bizzare that fireworks have become such an integral part of celebrations. How did it all begin.
Well it seems it started hundreds of years ago. We know it is a Chinese invention. The theory is someone ran out of firewood so threw a bit of green bamboo on the fire. Dry bamboo has pockets of air trapped inside, when heated this expands, bursts and boom, you have a cracker. It was so scary it was quickly put into use to scare away evil spirits.
Nearly a thousand years passed before another accident lead to the discovery of gunpowder.
It may have been a cook mixing kitchen ingredients, or alchemists trying to discover the elixir of youth. Three common ingredients added to fire make a bigger bang. It didn't take long to work out that if you put these ingredients inside the bamboo reeds you got even more bang for your buck.
Marco Polo brought the knowledge to Europe. By1560 that European Chemists managed to make gunpowder as explosive as possible by experimenting with the ratios of the ingredients. The final proportion which hasn't changed is:
1) Salt Peter 75%
2) Charcoal 15%
3) Sulphur 10%
Warning: Do not attempt this at home!
