Big bang theory

They were used to scare away evil spirits, carried by traders to keep large animals at bay. See how fireworks were born, and why we might want to replace them with a light that is brighter still

- Bhanuj Kappal

As with so many dramatic inventions, the first firecracker may have been born of an accident.

In Ist century BCE China, it is said, someone tossed a hollow bamboo stalk into a fire and saw it explode with a bang. Bamboo, it turned out, had pockets of air in its hollow stalk that expand when heated, until they burst with a sharp crack.

Records indicate that, once this was known, traders and travellers began to carry sticks of bamboo with them on long journeys, setting them alight to frighten away animals (or even evil spirits, if their luck seemed suspiciously bad).

Then, likely in China again, a method for chemical combustion was unlocked, with gunpowder. Taoist alchemists, in their search for the elixir of life, combined sulphur, charcoal and saltpetre; and discovered instead a shortcut to the big end.

They called it “huo yao” or “fire medicine” (because it was originally used to treat skin diseases).

Chinese records credit the invention of the first firework — bamboo stalks filled with gunpowder — to a monk named Li Tian. Sometime between the 7th and 10th centuries, he “saved” the Hunan province from the floods and droughts that plagued it, by using his firecrackers to frighten off evil spirits. His statue still stands in Liuyang, a city in the Hunan province, and locals mate offerings in thanks each year.