Illuminating Facts About Fireworks

13 THINGS AND FACTS ABOUT FIREWORKS

- Samantha Rideout, NAOREM ANUJA

1 THE FIREWORKS that Americans see on Fourth of July were most likely made— where else?—in China. The country that makes 90 per cent of the world’s fireworks is also where they were invented. Most historians believe that the Chinese used firecrackers as early as the second century B.C.

2 CANADIANS put on pyrotechnic displays every 1 July to celebrate their own national birthday, as the French do on 14 July to mark the anniversary of their revolution. But the US imports most of the world’s fireworks, spending more than $650 million on them per year. The Walt Disney Co. alone buys about $50 million worth.

3 BENEFITTING from the import ban on firecrackers and its dry weather conducive to the manufacture of fireworks, Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, is the undisputed firecracker hub of India, now. But, it wasn’t always so: the first firework factory in India was set up in Kolkata in the 19th century. And ‘Bhakthapu’ or Bengal Lights, the small mudpot, emitting bright yellow sparkles, was the first ever firework manufactured in India.

4 A MIXTURE of gunpowder and other flammable compounds causes fireworks to explode in all those pretty colours and fun shapes. Copper, for instance, burns bright blue; strontium sparks deep red. Together, they produce purple. But the outlines fireworks form depend on the placement of these compounds inside their shell, as well on the shell’s shape. Crowd favourites include ‘comet’, which features a long trail of sparks; ‘peony’, a spherical burst; and ‘strobe’, which produces a blinking effect.