Ebook: Fireworks

A Chinese book from 850 CE, called Classified essentials of the mysterious Tao of the true origin of things, warns the reader that if sulphur, realgar and saltpetre are heated with honey, they produce smoke and flames. Thus begins the history of artificially made fire. Taoism permeates every facet of Chinese society. Lao Tzu introduced Taoist thought in the sixth-century BCE as a purely philosophical discipline. Its centrality to Chinese society led it to have an effect on all intellectual pursuits, including alchemy, which led to the development of gunpowder in the eighth-century CE and, subsequently, fireworks as we know them today.