Pyrotechnics is the art, science, and craft of fireworks. As an underdeveluped art, it is comonly compared to other popular arts such as music, painting, and dancing. As a science, it used chemistry which is needed to make such fireworks and it attempts to understand and produce the chemical and phisical charictoristics of a pyrotechnic reaction. As a kraft and an art it is quite old being that it originated in China 2000 years ago. But as a science, it is realitivley young.

The History of Pyrotechnics by Petri Pihko

"Chinese crackers were probably the first fireworks to be made, about 2000 years ago. They are still used in China, and throughout the East, to celebrate Weddings, Births and religious festivals, and to scare away evil spirits. It is probable that gunpowder developed in China because of the ready availability of Potassium Nitrate (Saltpeter) one of the essential ingredients, and used domestically in the curing of meat. Fireworks have also been used for centuries in ancient Indian and Siamese religious ceremonies. The Siamese used rockets 8ft to 10ft long on bamboo sticks up to 40ft high. In India, development was slower gowing to the caste system. Members of different castes were forbidden to touch one or the other of the substances involved making it impossible for any but the lowest and poorest to make them at all.

The earliest recorded use of gunpowder in England, and probably the western world, is by the Franciscan monk Roger Bacon. He was born in Ilminster in Somerset in 1214 and lived, as a master of languages, maths, optics and alchemy to 1294. He recorded his experiments with a mixture which was very inadequate by today's standards but was recognisable as gunpowder. His formula was very low in Saltpeter because there was no natural source available, but it contained the other two essential ingredients: Charcoal and Sulphur. In 1242 he wrote.... "if you light it you will get thunder and lightning if you know the trick".

Fireworks as such probably arrived in the 14th century, brought back from the East by Crusaders, and then rapidly became a form of International Entertainment. The first recorded fireworks in England were at the wedding of Henry V11 in 1486. They became very popular during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1. Shakespeare mentions them and they were so much enjoyed by the Queen herself that she created a " Firemaster of England "... James 11 was so pleased with is coronation display that he Knighted his firemaster.

In spite of China's initial progress, Europe surpassed it in pyrotechnic development in the 14th century, about the time the gun was invented. Shot and gunpowder for military purposes were made by skilled military tradesmen, who later were called " Firemakers ", and who also were required to make fireworks for celebrations of victory and peace. During the Renaissance, two European schools of pyrotechnic thought emerged, one in Italy and the other at Nurnberg, Germany. The Italian school of Pyrotechnics emphasised elaborate fireworks, and the German school stressed scientific advancement. Both the schools added significantly to further development of pyrotechnics, and by the mid 19th century fireworks became popular in the United States." (Petri Pihko)