Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: today we're doing fireworks. Hey, Robert, did did you grow
Speaker 1: up in a place where, whatever the actual law was,
Speaker 1: you at least thought that fireworks were illegal and that
Speaker 1: setting them off in your yard might summon the police. No.
Speaker 1: I I grew up in places where it seemed that
Speaker 1: fireworks were just part of life, and you could just
Speaker 1: go out and play with a bunch of firecrackers in
Speaker 1: the afternoon by yourself, and it wasn't any big deal,
Speaker 1: you know, strap them to Joe there in um build
Speaker 1: little volcanoes out of dirt and then blow them up
Speaker 1: to get some scotch tape and see how many, um
Speaker 1: what bottle rockets you could uh lash together and still
Speaker 1: achieve some thing that would fly through the air, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. So definitely, when I was a little kid,
Speaker 1: I had the impression that using fireworks was illegal. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was, but I think that's because
Speaker 1: you couldn't buy them in the county where I lived.
Speaker 1: So when Fourth of July or New Year's or whatever
Speaker 1: was coming up and we wanted to get fireworks, we
Speaker 1: had to go on a road trip up or down
Speaker 1: the interstate to to one of the more lawless evil
Speaker 1: counties where you could go to Big Daddy's Firecrackers, or
Speaker 1: you know, one of these other places. I remember when
Speaker 1: I was a kid one time buying a you know,
Speaker 1: using my little allowance money to buy a firecracker that
Speaker 1: was very exciting looking because it was shaped like a tank.
Speaker 1: It was made of cardboard, and I thought, now, this
Speaker 1: thing is going to be like a piece of mobile artillery.
Speaker 1: It's going to roll around and shootout stuff. I recall
Speaker 1: it didn't really do much, and it was one of
Speaker 1: my earliest experiences of spending money on something expecting it
Speaker 1: to be great and it being a total flop. I
Speaker 1: remember being really impressed with the like the tanks and
Speaker 1: the little sort of novelty items, because basically we when
Speaker 1: Fourth of July or New Years would roll around, they'd
Speaker 1: set up a ten er a couple of tenths in
Speaker 1: town in the place where I grew up, and and
Speaker 1: you know, they would sell the fireworks there. I always
Speaker 1: wanted to get things like the tank, but generally a
Speaker 1: parental or grown up unit that was present would would say, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's a waste of money. You want something that
Speaker 1: goes up in the air and blows up. My my
Speaker 1: fondest memory I remember, I think my grandparents got this
Speaker 1: one was one that went up, exploded and dropped tiny
Speaker 1: parachute men out of it, like yeah, and that was
Speaker 1: that was crazy. That was awesome because it's dropping something.
Speaker 1: Then you then find that's not just total garbage. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's essentially garbage, but not total garbage. No, that's great
Speaker 1: because then you strap a firecracker to that army man
Speaker 1: and put it up. Yeah, I guess um. But then
Speaker 1: I also remember being really impressed by the ones that
Speaker 1: looked like actual rockets. The more rockety, the better, right,
Speaker 1: And I distinctly remember sucking my my parents into getting
Speaker 1: this this one rocket and then we we we brought
Speaker 1: it home. And as it turned out, one of the
Speaker 1: problems with this particular rocket is it's supposed to have
Speaker 1: a launching rod, you know, like a rod that sticks
Speaker 1: into the ground that ensures that it takes off in
Speaker 1: a you know, a with a straight skyward trajectory. That
Speaker 1: rod had been misplaced prior to purchase, so it did
Speaker 1: not have one. So we set this thing off and
Speaker 1: it instead of going straight up into the sky and exploding,
Speaker 1: it went straight up and made a turn and then
Speaker 1: went through a a a narrow gap in the sliding
Speaker 1: glass door of our house, and it hit my uncle
Speaker 1: in the face. Fortunately didn't like blow up in his
Speaker 1: face or anything, but like, you know, kind of punctured
Speaker 1: his cheek a little bit, and then like skidded around
Speaker 1: on the carpeted floor shooting sparks everywhere. Uh So that
Speaker 1: was exciting. Did you get to keep playing with fireworks
Speaker 1: after that? Uh? Yeah, I guess it did inspire me
Speaker 1: to be a little maybe I was a little more
Speaker 1: careful after that, and I certainly to get into the
Speaker 1: total recklessness of you know, people launching Roman candles at
Speaker 1: each other, that sort of thing that you hear about.
Speaker 1: I was generally it was about Yeah you hear about
Speaker 1: or your horror stories about but or or that your
Speaker 1: friends did in high school. Yeah, for me, it was
Speaker 1: just firecrackers and in bottle rockets, so that you know,
Speaker 1: low level uh and firework ammunition here, not getting into
Speaker 1: like cherry bombs and so forth. I have personal stories
Speaker 1: about firecracker use in high school that I'm just not
Speaker 1: going to share on the podcast because I do not
Speaker 1: want to inspire imitators and and have kids get body
Speaker 1: parts blown off. Yeah, I have to say as a parent,
Speaker 1: I certainly am far more protective when it comes to fireworks. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not like super into them as an As a
Speaker 1: grown up, um, I like watching professional fireworks every now
Speaker 1: and then, But then again, I'm not going to really
Speaker 1: go out of my way to see them. If they're around,
Speaker 1: I will look up, you know. And I'm I'm more
Speaker 1: protective of my son, like I don't. I don't really
Speaker 1: like the idea of him even playing with fireworks to
Speaker 1: the degree that I did growing up. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: one safe alternative that has always puzzled me is one
Speaker 1: of the most bizarre genres of home media that I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. I recall seeing these, I think in the
Speaker 1: gift shop area of a cracker barrel and DVD's of
Speaker 1: fireworks displays. Oh man, I vaguely remember seeing because I
Speaker 1: never watched one, that's for sure. Yeah I didn't either,
Speaker 1: But I'm just wondering, what, So does somebody buy this
Speaker 1: DVD and take it home and just put it on.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I just want to watch some fireworks
Speaker 1: in the living room. I guess, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: is it that different from watching the Hearth on Netflix
Speaker 1: every Christmas? I think it's somewhat different. I mean, neither
Speaker 1: one's going to give off heat the way that it
Speaker 1: would in reality. But you know, a real fireworks display,
Speaker 1: you sort of feel the sound. There's this booming thing,
Speaker 1: and and it's live, so you're usually experiencing it along
Speaker 1: with many other people who are celebrating something. Just having
Speaker 1: one on the TV. I don't know that I feel
Speaker 1: like he get closer to the reality of a fire
Speaker 1: burning in your fireplace with a fire on the TV. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably so, probably so. Uh then again, I do I
Speaker 1: do know that they televise, or at least in the past,
Speaker 1: they would televise some of these big fireworks shows and
Speaker 1: and I remember I remember those being on TV when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. Yeah, I guess so, so as
Speaker 1: as everyone can guess, here we are talking about fireworks today.
Speaker 1: This is going to be one of our Invention themed
Speaker 1: episodes are an exploration of the origin of fireworks, which
Speaker 1: is a fascinating story that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: us probably know like the broad strokes of it. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people are probably at the very
Speaker 1: least vaguely aware of the Chinese origins that we're going
Speaker 1: to be discussing here, But even just the Chinese origins
Speaker 1: of fireworks, it's it's just such a wonderful tale, full
Speaker 1: of mystery and magic and and also goblins. And then likewise,
Speaker 1: when we get into the European history of it as well,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of magic and miss red there
Speaker 1: as well. Totally, So we're not going to run through
Speaker 1: the entire history of pyro technology here, but suffice to
Speaker 1: say that the human ability to manipulate, sustain, control, and
Speaker 1: produce fire is key to technological advancement as a whole.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just difficult to overstate the importance of
Speaker 1: fire mastery in human history. It's not just key, it's
Speaker 1: the master key. It's the thing that unlocks almost everything else. Again,
Speaker 1: there's a reason that broadly historical technological regimes are characterized
Speaker 1: in terms of metal working, like what types of things
Speaker 1: you could make tools out of, And you couldn't really
Speaker 1: have metal working without fire, That's right. If you want
Speaker 1: a more detailed breakdown of sort of like the basic
Speaker 1: fire technology history of humanity. Check out our what was it?
Speaker 1: A three part series we did on the match Stick
Speaker 1: for Invention our our other show which has now been
Speaker 1: folded back into this show, but all those episodes about
Speaker 1: the match are still available for your listening. The fire
Speaker 1: Extinguisher too. We talked to us, right, yeah, we kind
Speaker 1: of can we continue? So it's ultimately more like a
Speaker 1: six part journey through uh, some major moments in pyrotechnology.
Speaker 1: I feel like this show is maybe against our wishes,
Speaker 1: revealing some freudy and preoccupations going on in both of
Speaker 1: our brains. But with explosive fireworks, we can't stop thinking
Speaker 1: and talking about firecrackers, fire setting fire to stuff. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so. Well. Also, we're coming up on July four,
Speaker 1: and I think that was one of the main issues
Speaker 1: here too, is we've been talking about doing a fireworks
Speaker 1: episode forever and then finally um Work asked asked, us, hey,
Speaker 1: do you have anything in the catalog that's July four themed?
Speaker 1: And we're like, well, no, not really, but we've been
Speaker 1: wanting to do fireworks, so here we are. So one
Speaker 1: of the things that we touch on in those pyrotechnology
Speaker 1: episodes is that in many ways, the camp fire itself,
Speaker 1: the longstanding and important aspect of a human culture, is
Speaker 1: in its off, an ancient laboratory, a place where humans
Speaker 1: experimented with the addition of various fuels and substances to
Speaker 1: learn what burns, what doesn't burn, and sometimes what burns
Speaker 1: really well or what combusts. You know, I didn't think
Speaker 1: of this until just now, but this is also bringing
Speaker 1: to mind the recent episodes we did about buildings made
Speaker 1: out of mammoth bone that we're found in what is
Speaker 1: now Russia and Ukraine. But in this ancient Ice Age culture,
Speaker 1: and a big part of that culture seemed to be
Speaker 1: based around the burning of bones as fuel, something we
Speaker 1: wouldn't even normally think of as possible. Yeah, exactly, Like
Speaker 1: bones are one example of of a of a combustion
Speaker 1: uhh source that that has played an important role in
Speaker 1: human history. Another one, of course, is dung um. Some
Speaker 1: some listeners of particularly some cultures, may not be aware
Speaker 1: of just how important dung has been and still is
Speaker 1: in many cases as a fuel. You know, you can
Speaker 1: almost still feel the instinct in yourself, or at least
Speaker 1: I can when ever, you are sitting around to fire
Speaker 1: and you have some kind of novel item, there's almost
Speaker 1: this primordial urge to just see what it's like if
Speaker 1: you just throw that in the fire. What does it
Speaker 1: look like when it burns? What does it do? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I see that with my son especially, we recently were
Speaker 1: putting up we were we had some tomato plants and
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, let's get some sticks to brace these suckers,
Speaker 1: and then we realized, oh, no, the last time we
Speaker 1: had a fire in the backyard, the boy burned everything,
Speaker 1: like every every piece of dry wood was consented. So, oh,
Speaker 1: I sympathize. So it shouldn't come as any surprise then
Speaker 1: that there there are, you know, various accounts of pre
Speaker 1: fireworks substances and materials that would combust or burn in
Speaker 1: a certain way that was notable. And one of the
Speaker 1: really key examples here that is central to the origin
Speaker 1: of fireworks is bamboo. Now bamboo, I think everyone's familiar
Speaker 1: with bamboo, but it is a hollow hearted grass. It's
Speaker 1: especially common in East Asia, but you'll find it throughout
Speaker 1: the world's tropical regions. Now, I know many of you
Speaker 1: have enjoyed this exact experiment. Uh, and if you haven't,
Speaker 1: I suggest you try it the next time you have
Speaker 1: a campfire, if it all possible. Dry bamboo can burn
Speaker 1: quite readily, and in some cases the drying out process
Speaker 1: causes those hollows in the bamboo to crack open, but
Speaker 1: other times there remains a sealed pocket of air in there.
Speaker 1: So if you throw the bamboo into the fire, the
Speaker 1: heat will cause the air within that hollow to expand,
Speaker 1: and it will expand enough that it pops and produces
Speaker 1: a startling bang when it explodes. I've never done this personally,
Speaker 1: but now I really want to. Yeah, it's it's tremendous fun.
Speaker 1: I mean it. We can well imagine that this was
Speaker 1: one of the key attractions. It's like we put this
Speaker 1: into the fire and it's it's it's alarming, it's entertaining,
Speaker 1: it's uh, you know, it's it's raising your your awareness. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's something that I think, you know, we can when
Speaker 1: we experience it. We're experiencing the the primal experience of
Speaker 1: burning bamboo as well. Now, this property of bamboo is
Speaker 1: something that has been recognized since ancient times. Yes, absolutely, Um,
Speaker 1: you know. It also brings to mind another interesting idea
Speaker 1: that we recently discussed in our Phartonomicon episodes um Mary
Speaker 1: Roach and her her book what was it? Uh gulp.
Speaker 1: I believe she has his conversation with the University of
Speaker 1: Alabama's Stephen Secor about snakes, and he has this theory
Speaker 1: that uh hypothesis, rather that perhaps the myth of fire
Speaker 1: breathing dragons has some origin in dead constrictor snakes bloated
Speaker 1: with prey bring being brought to the fireside, and then
Speaker 1: a post mortem exhalation of stomach gases ignites the flames,
Speaker 1: that makes the flames roar up um, which you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's a whole lot of evidence
Speaker 1: for that, but it was an interesting idea. Yeah, highly speculative,
Speaker 1: but I like it. Yeah, And it gets again, it
Speaker 1: kind of touches in the same area that we're touching
Speaker 1: on here with bamboo. Uh, the idea that this inevitable
Speaker 1: and use meant to be had in burning it in
Speaker 1: the fire, So it would it would seem impossible to
Speaker 1: truly date how far back this practice goes of observing
Speaker 1: that bamboo pops in the fire. But given the necessary components,
Speaker 1: you know, and the obvious lack of archaeological evidence. We
Speaker 1: have to consider that it goes like pretty much all
Speaker 1: the way back in uh, as far as there have
Speaker 1: been peoples around bamboo that are capable of producing fire,
Speaker 1: and in Chinese history, we at least can consider it
Speaker 1: as long as we've had Chinese writing and uh, and
Speaker 1: that is where we see some some you know, early
Speaker 1: evidence that this was an established thing. So I was
Speaker 1: reading some writings by um hiwang Yuan of Western Kentucky
Speaker 1: University where he's a professor of Library science, but he's
Speaker 1: also a guest professor of the Foreign Languages College at
Speaker 1: Nankai University in China, and he's written several books on
Speaker 1: Chinese proverbs and legends. In two thousand eight, he wrote
Speaker 1: a piece on Chinese fireworks, and he points out, uh
Speaker 1: that what we're talking about here is bao jou, which
Speaker 1: is bloating bamboo, like that's the word for it, and
Speaker 1: it later becomes used for fireworks. And he points to
Speaker 1: a few early mentions of of this sort of thing.
Speaker 1: He points to the Song Dynasty writer Woang and Anshi
Speaker 1: who lived ten twenty one through six, who wrote a
Speaker 1: poem in which one of the lines translates as follows
Speaker 1: quote admits the crackling of exploding bamboo, a year is
Speaker 1: gone in the warmth of a spring breeze, we drink
Speaker 1: the wine of suzu. Now, to me, that's availing itself
Speaker 1: of multiple interpretations. When the year is gone amidst the
Speaker 1: crackling of bamboo. Is that because crackling bamboo is meant
Speaker 1: to signal the turning of the new year? Or is
Speaker 1: it that a year is gone in a flash as
Speaker 1: as fast as as bamboo cracks. Yeah, it's nice. There's
Speaker 1: some wonderful poetry to it that certainly it does seem
Speaker 1: to be describing, uh, you know, whatever it's getting alluding to,
Speaker 1: you know, metaphorically. It is also alluding to the Chinese
Speaker 1: custom that the New Year spring festival celebration of burning
Speaker 1: bamboo to create loud, startling noises as a part of celebrations.
Speaker 1: This was actually making me wonder about the linguistic conceptual
Speaker 1: history of exploding or the idea of an explosion. Before
Speaker 1: a culture had combustible chemicals like say, black powder, would
Speaker 1: the culture have had a concept or a word that
Speaker 1: means exactly what explode means to us today. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think what other chances to observe natural explosions would
Speaker 1: have been obviously, bamboo seems like a good one. But
Speaker 1: what beyond that? You can think of volcanic eruptions, But
Speaker 1: that wouldn't be something that people observed often enough you
Speaker 1: would think that to have its own dedicated word for it. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it seems to me like many early writings about
Speaker 1: chemical combustion actually use words related to other, much more
Speaker 1: common natural phenomenon that aren't exactly explosions, things like thunder
Speaker 1: and lightning. Yeah, because I guess my mind does instantly
Speaker 1: go to things that are more I guess a bursting
Speaker 1: or rupturing. For instance, um, the popping of a of
Speaker 1: of of a pimple or or a blister or or
Speaker 1: some sort of you know, skin ailment, or the bursting
Speaker 1: of say a blood filled kick, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But those are again, it's more of a bursting or
Speaker 1: a rupturing, and I would you know, we wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: compare it to an exploding. Likewise, if you were doing
Speaker 1: something with, say, bladders of animals that have been inflated
Speaker 1: with air or water, and then you're bursting them in
Speaker 1: some fashion, it's still probably a different thing than just explosion.
Speaker 1: I can imagine that with a bladder, because it seems
Speaker 1: like the important phenomena are the ones of like suddenly
Speaker 1: relieving large amounts of pressure with a sound or some
Speaker 1: kind of some kind of like tactile blasts that you
Speaker 1: can feel. Yeah, and you're just not going to get
Speaker 1: that with a with with a blood filled tick or
Speaker 1: the pimple. I mean, if you could, that'd be pretty impressive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's kind of a mental popping sound, but
Speaker 1: it's not really an audible sound. It's just more of
Speaker 1: an experience. Um And then again, we're probably to what
Speaker 1: extent or were we thinking about explosions when we engage,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's like the the the the idea
Speaker 1: of the explosion then informs how we're thinking about rupturing
Speaker 1: and bursting. So um I mentioned there was another um
Speaker 1: uh bit of poetry here that Yawn refers to. He
Speaker 1: refers to writings in the Book of Songs, one of
Speaker 1: the five classics of of Chinese poetry, said to be
Speaker 1: compiled by Confusus himself, and this is from the late
Speaker 1: Western Joe dynasty, which would be ten s b c
Speaker 1: E through seven seventy one b c E and it
Speaker 1: translates as follows, how goes the night. It's not yet midnight,
Speaker 1: but the ting lao is already blazing. So king lao
Speaker 1: apparently refers to a kind of torch made of bamboo,
Speaker 1: and as it burns, it makes these crackling, perhaps popping noises.
Speaker 1: So it's an upgrade eating of the bamboo popping effect
Speaker 1: into a different sort of pyrotechnic device, not just desultory
Speaker 1: poking into the fire with a piece of bamboo such
Speaker 1: that it pops, but making a torch that is designed
Speaker 1: to pop as it burns. Yes, that's that's my understanding
Speaker 1: of it. Yes, it's easy to simply extrapolate our modern
Speaker 1: enjoyment of such pops and bangs to ancient people's. And
Speaker 1: I do think it's perfectly fair to assume this is
Speaker 1: a large part of it. You know, like a startling
Speaker 1: sound is amusing, and uh, you know, you start, you're
Speaker 1: scared for a second, and then you're relieved and you're
Speaker 1: laughing like that's I think that's just part of the
Speaker 1: universal human experience, and it's been that way for for
Speaker 1: a very long time. Yeah, I'm reminded of the psychological
Speaker 1: attraction people have to popping bubble wrap? Why do people
Speaker 1: like doing that so much? I think we hypothesized in
Speaker 1: a previous episode of Invention that it might have something
Speaker 1: to do with grooming instincts maybe, but back to pimple
Speaker 1: popping and tick bursting, right exactly. But I think part
Speaker 1: of it also, especially when you see children do it,
Speaker 1: it seems a little it less like anxiety relieving grooming
Speaker 1: behaviors with them and and more like a game of
Speaker 1: Jack in the Box or Pop Goes the Weasel or
Speaker 1: Peek a Boo or something. It's just repeatedly startling yourself
Speaker 1: with the sound and enjoying it absolutely. And so I
Speaker 1: think it again, it's perfectly fair to say this is
Speaker 1: a large part of what we're talking about here. But
Speaker 1: another part of the tradition is the use of loud
Speaker 1: noises to frighten away uh spirits or monsters. Uh. The
Speaker 1: more recent version of this is the idea of frightening
Speaker 1: away the New Year's beast, the nun Shao. Now there's
Speaker 1: some discussion about whether this is actually you know, how
Speaker 1: how old this tradition goes back. There's some that say
Speaker 1: that it's essentially a recent tradition that's popped up, and
Speaker 1: this gets into you know, some of the the Chinese
Speaker 1: New Year celebrations that most of us are familiar with seeing,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of like a lion dance taking
Speaker 1: place and firecrackers going off, that sort of thing. But
Speaker 1: it also correlates to an ancient tradition that Juand discusses,
Speaker 1: the shan Zhao. According to the Han dynasty classic the
Speaker 1: Book of Gods and Spirits, these strange creatures would harass
Speaker 1: camp fires in the night, and they were also said
Speaker 1: in some traditions to carry a disease that could cause
Speaker 1: chills and fevers. So what you did is you use
Speaker 1: bamboo firewood, because that would of course pop at regular
Speaker 1: intervals and create these frightening noises that would keep these monsters, spirits, creatures,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call them, away from your fire.
Speaker 1: So it is not just amusing to have exploding bamboo around,
Speaker 1: but it's also somewhere between a real repellent of maybe
Speaker 1: some kind of creature that would threaten your campfire, or
Speaker 1: at least imagined as some kind of apotropaic magic to
Speaker 1: keep the demons away. Yeah, exactly so. So obviously, quite unexpectedly,
Speaker 1: goblins were popping up in the research, so I decided
Speaker 1: to look a little deeper. Um. And one of one
Speaker 1: of the sources we came across as a book by
Speaker 1: Richard von blonde idled The Sinister Way, the Divine and
Speaker 1: the Demonic and Chinese religious culture, and in it uh
Speaker 1: he says that shan zhao has sometimes translated as mountain
Speaker 1: goblins uh and described as being ape like in various ways. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he says that basically these are quote a class
Speaker 1: of petty demons, change link spirits inhabiting the wild mountains
Speaker 1: and forests. Yeah. Overall he seems to characterize them as
Speaker 1: a kind of a very classic type of monster. Actually,
Speaker 1: the monster that in that embodies the chaos of the
Speaker 1: wilderness as opposed to the order of civilization. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: of course you see this in European traditions. You see
Speaker 1: this uh in cultures around the world. Right. I mean
Speaker 1: that the dark is frightening, the wilds are frightening, especially
Speaker 1: if they're not your wilds. And that's something that he
Speaker 1: points out of Von Glan points out that after the
Speaker 1: loss of Northern China to foreign conquerors in three seventeen,
Speaker 1: the Chinese rulers were displaced to the south where they
Speaker 1: encounter or a dense, humid subtropical environment along with rugged mountains,
Speaker 1: along with new wildlife and native people's. So he says
Speaker 1: that this was to to the rulers of that have
Speaker 1: that had come down from northern China, this was a
Speaker 1: place of barbaric peoples, of savage spirits and uh. And
Speaker 1: thus you see that it may be strengthening predispositions for
Speaker 1: this sort of folkloric motif. Though then again, I wonder
Speaker 1: how much, um, the idea of like mountain goblins that
Speaker 1: are considered somewhat humanoids, somewhat ape like, might have been
Speaker 1: inspired by encounters with actual wildlife like I know, of course,
Speaker 1: gibbons traditionally occupied much of ancient China and there and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of consciousness of gibbons in Chinese culture
Speaker 1: and poetry. Yeah, absolutely, um And and apparently some some
Speaker 1: reads on the shengs Au certainly point towards, you know,
Speaker 1: actual apes as being at least part of it, you know,
Speaker 1: because indeed, what do we know about out a lot
Speaker 1: of monkeys species in the monkeys, especially in the wild,
Speaker 1: is that they can be curious, they can be um,
Speaker 1: they can be some a manner of a pest when
Speaker 1: they encounter human activities, and uh, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how much we should read into the idea of
Speaker 1: of illness being caused by them, because you see this
Speaker 1: a lot with mythical creatures, right and and mythical and
Speaker 1: magical beings and magical people's they cause disease their way
Speaker 1: of explaining illness in a pre germ theory world. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, you know, obviously one can transmit
Speaker 1: illnesses from uh, wild animals, so that could potentially be
Speaker 1: a part of it. I guess. Uh. However, you do
Speaker 1: see folks that go in an entirely cryptid direction with
Speaker 1: all of this, and they're like, oh, well, this is
Speaker 1: clearly uh you know, we're clearly talking about sasquatches. Here.
Speaker 1: Was there an X Files episode about the chan Zio
Speaker 1: I don't know. You're the one to tell me about
Speaker 1: the whether there's an X Files episode or not. I
Speaker 1: don't remember one. But you know, they they turned through
Speaker 1: a lot of cryptids over the course of that show.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of seasons to fill. At some point
Speaker 1: they were even doing the Jersey Devil, so you know,
Speaker 1: they were really really rooting around in the bottom of
Speaker 1: the bucket. But but that does also point to you know,
Speaker 1: you can point to plenty of other cultures that have
Speaker 1: some sort of a wild man of the woods kind
Speaker 1: of uh creature or multiple creatures in their mythology like
Speaker 1: uh into a certain extent, a number of these could
Speaker 1: be inspired by observances of ape creatures in the wild. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: I mean that That's always one of the great mysteries
Speaker 1: when you're dealing with mythical beasts is like what percent
Speaker 1: of it is imagination and what percent is inspired by
Speaker 1: something people saw, either like you know, seeing a person
Speaker 1: and misunderstanding what you saw, or seeing some seeing wildlife
Speaker 1: and misunderstanding. Yeah. Now, now von Glen points out that
Speaker 1: there are other things that were sort of classified as
Speaker 1: as also being shan zhao in essence. One of them
Speaker 1: was this, uh, these entities called the Wutong Shin that
Speaker 1: I think we talked about in the past and the
Speaker 1: show because there in some ways in some versions of
Speaker 1: them are comparable to incubi, demons and European traditions. But
Speaker 1: but these are as you often see with with mythical
Speaker 1: creatures and beings and um in cultures. The wutong Shan
Speaker 1: end up like changing over time and become being more
Speaker 1: like gods and being something that should be revered, whereas
Speaker 1: Uh von Glen points out that the the Chanzhao goblins
Speaker 1: just remain untransformed in cultural traditions. They remain these pesky
Speaker 1: goblins of the wild. And one issue that I found
Speaker 1: rather interesting here that I don't really have a firm
Speaker 1: answer on is is why in some cases, like a
Speaker 1: number of cases, they're described as ape like, but sometimes
Speaker 1: they have inverted feet and then perhaps in some cases
Speaker 1: a single leg. And that made me think of these
Speaker 1: other cases of mono peds which are described in various traditions,
Speaker 1: including by plenty of the elder uh the notion of
Speaker 1: one legged wood spirits uh, that that one might encounter
Speaker 1: in the wild. Again entirely speculative here, but I'm I
Speaker 1: just wonder if that kind of concept could be inspired
Speaker 1: by seeing the different locomotion of apes like gibbons who
Speaker 1: walk or climb or hang with the aid of very
Speaker 1: long arms. Yeah, or kind of like a a side
Speaker 1: profile kind of issue where you're just looking at them
Speaker 1: from the side and they they're like, oh, they're kind
Speaker 1: of moving like a human might move if they had
Speaker 1: one leg and a pair of crutches, that sort of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: So you know that's always a possibility one of the uh.
Speaker 1: And then also you could also throw in, well, it's
Speaker 1: a minimally counterintuitive creature design, right, what I have not
Speaker 1: two legs but one. Likewise, you could compare it to
Speaker 1: congenital deformities in human beings. But but one interesting hypothesis
Speaker 1: that I ran across was from the scholar carl A.
Speaker 1: P Ruck, who proposed that at least some of these
Speaker 1: might be connected to Vadic traditions involving soma um, which
Speaker 1: of course is some soma. Was this essentially some sort
Speaker 1: of drug that is described in ancient texts, and the
Speaker 1: actual botanical reality of soma remains something of a mystery,
Speaker 1: with explanations ranging from psilocybin to something like a fedra. Okay.
Speaker 1: But but Ruck's proposition here is that this idea of
Speaker 1: a one armed being in the woods is essentially tied
Speaker 1: to a botanical description. Specifically, he wrote about shade Foot's,
Speaker 1: a fabulous tribe from India who were thought to jump
Speaker 1: about on a single foot that could be used as
Speaker 1: a paracel uh and apparently the idea is that what
Speaker 1: if this is uh, you know, it's an exaggerated um
Speaker 1: uh anthropomorphic description of a plant that you would encounter
Speaker 1: in the wild. I don't know, I don't have a
Speaker 1: firm answer. What's an interesting idea. I'm trying to picture
Speaker 1: it a plant that that could metaphorically be described as
Speaker 1: a person with one foot who can also use their
Speaker 1: foot as a parasol. I guess. I mean, so my
Speaker 1: family recently went mushroom foraging and and also just sort
Speaker 1: of identifying mushrooms, and you know, we have a number
Speaker 1: of them. We have. The Old Man in the Woods
Speaker 1: is one of The Old Man of the Woods is
Speaker 1: one of the mushrooms you encounter, you know, the the
Speaker 1: chicken or hen of the woods is another. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of the sort of thing that goes on
Speaker 1: with the the naming of and certainly the non scientific
Speaker 1: naming of various um organisms in the wild. So, you know,
Speaker 1: it seems totally possible, even though I don't know that
Speaker 1: there's actually any any evidence for it. Uh. If it's
Speaker 1: it may just be pure speculation, but it's something to
Speaker 1: think about. As for von Glann himself, he ultimately summarizes
Speaker 1: that that he thinks, quote, it seems likely that these
Speaker 1: demonic images derived from frightening encounters with denizens of the mountains,
Speaker 1: both human and ape. Okay, so it might be just
Speaker 1: sort of conflating of stories of people encountering gibbons, people
Speaker 1: encountering other people they weren't familiar with, and it turns
Speaker 1: into monster stories, but ultimately leads to this consciousness of
Speaker 1: a thing can do to repel the monsters of the wild,
Speaker 1: the monsters of the mountains, is that you can have
Speaker 1: a bamboo torch that explodes and frightens and drives them off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you may and and it's one of those
Speaker 1: things which it makes sense if you're dealing with an
Speaker 1: actual um frightening animal or you know, in the wild
Speaker 1: makes the loud noises scared away. But also it's something
Speaker 1: you can do against even ideas of darkness, right, more
Speaker 1: supernatural premises about about the nature of reality. You know,
Speaker 1: I am frightened, but hey, I can make a loud
Speaker 1: noise and uh, and that's gonna that's at least something
Speaker 1: there's something actually very instinctual. I think about the idea
Speaker 1: of making noise when you are frightened, especially in the
Speaker 1: dark or in the wild. You know, there's the old
Speaker 1: expression whistling, whistling past the graveyard, um or you'll just
Speaker 1: notice it in people when they start getting scared walking
Speaker 1: around in a place, like kids sometimes maybe start talking louder,
Speaker 1: or start talking to themselves, or snapping their fingers or
Speaker 1: whistling or humming. We've got this natural sense that making
Speaker 1: noises provide security. Yeah. I remember thinking this while watching
Speaker 1: Um the movie Yet, the recent adaptation of Suphan King's
Speaker 1: Yet you know, where these children are encountering this horrifying
Speaker 1: supernatural entity, And it just kept thinking, like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: if I encountered Pennywise the clown, I would just yell
Speaker 1: at him. I would just yell at him. He wouldn't
Speaker 1: even know what to do, you know, like that, like
Speaker 1: that's one way you can diffuse the supernatural adversary of fear.
Speaker 1: He didn't expect you to go on the offensive and
Speaker 1: and and shout things at him. So yeah, maybe it's
Speaker 1: connected to that. I don't know. Should we take a
Speaker 1: break and then come back to talk more about the
Speaker 1: invention of fireworks? Yes, we'll take a quick break for
Speaker 1: the ad goblins, and then we'll be back with more content.
Speaker 1: Thank Okay, we heard from the ad goblins, but we
Speaker 1: we we use some popping devices to drive them away.
Speaker 1: And now we're back into the history of proto fireworks
Speaker 1: at least. Yeah. So, yeah, we've talked about proto fireworks,
Speaker 1: but where to act shool fireworks into the picture. Things
Speaker 1: that we can that we would actually look at, say
Speaker 1: on a table and say, oh, look at that. That's
Speaker 1: that's a firework, that's a firecracker, etcetera. So basically the
Speaker 1: ideas that the Chinese simply augmented their fire and noisemaker
Speaker 1: practices with chemically volatile substances. Once those substances were discovered. So,
Speaker 1: as we discussed in our our Mash episodes, sulfur tipped
Speaker 1: matches were already in use in China by the sixth
Speaker 1: century CE. But the key to fireworks is, of course, uh,
Speaker 1: this special array of chemicals that come together to to
Speaker 1: to make gunpowder. Uh. There's of course saltpeter, which is
Speaker 1: potassium nitrate, which was already being stuffed into bamboo during
Speaker 1: the Southern Song period of twelve seventy nine in order
Speaker 1: to create a more impressive bang with the bamboo and
Speaker 1: between these two periods, potassium nitrate is said to have
Speaker 1: emerged from the realm of Chinese alchemy. Yeah, so maybe
Speaker 1: we should stop for a second to look at the
Speaker 1: chemical properties of potassium nitrate and understand the role it
Speaker 1: plays in the development of firecrackers. So back to the
Speaker 1: principles of fire. You know, we've talked about a number
Speaker 1: of times. What does fire need in order to burn?
Speaker 1: It needs fuel, It needs heat, and it needs oxygen
Speaker 1: because fire is a chemical reaction in which fuel reacts
Speaker 1: with oxygen underheat to produce byproducts of primarily carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: and water vapor with other trace elements and molecules given off.
Speaker 1: And potassium nitrate or saltpeter can aid in the process
Speaker 1: of combustion because of its chemical composition. So potassium nitrate
Speaker 1: is made out of one nitrogen atom, one potassium atom,
Speaker 1: and three oxygen atoms, and the key to its role
Speaker 1: in combustion is is those three oxygen atoms. It is
Speaker 1: an oxygen donor to the combustion process. Fire can only
Speaker 1: burn as fast as it can access oxygen to react
Speaker 1: with the fuel. Remember it's a reaction. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: the atmosphere is full of oxygen so there's you know,
Speaker 1: on Earth, it's pretty easy to get fire going if
Speaker 1: you have enough heat and fuel because there's just free
Speaker 1: oxygen all over the place. But the surface of a
Speaker 1: burning log can still only access so much atmospheric oxygen
Speaker 1: at once, right like you know, there it's giving off
Speaker 1: chemicals and gases as it burns, of course, and then
Speaker 1: there's it can really only react with the oxygen that's
Speaker 1: sort of touching right along the edge of the log.
Speaker 1: So there is there's a limit to the rate of
Speaker 1: combustion imposed by the amount of oxygen available to react.
Speaker 1: At the same time, potassium nitrate plays the role of
Speaker 1: an oxidizer in the combustion reactions. It provides a ready
Speaker 1: supply of extra oxygen, so in the presence of heat
Speaker 1: and fuel, saltpeter will massively accelerate the speed at which
Speaker 1: fuel burns, meaning you get often something beyond simple burning
Speaker 1: and something that that qualifies as an explosion. And this
Speaker 1: is where the Chinese alchemists come in now. And now
Speaker 1: we refer to them as alchemists, but obviously we're using
Speaker 1: we have Western alchemy and then we have Chinese alchemy,
Speaker 1: and uh, they're directly comparable in a number of ways.
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately, you're dealing with with people on both
Speaker 1: sides that are attempting to to figure out what substances
Speaker 1: do and what they can achieve in various combinations with
Speaker 1: each other. Right, And these practices are usually some combination
Speaker 1: actually of real scientific study of the material properties of
Speaker 1: different chemicals and a lot of magical beliefs mixed in. Yes,
Speaker 1: And in this particular case, uh, it said that the
Speaker 1: alchemist in general were attempting to create pills of immortality
Speaker 1: or dan, which interestingly involved mixing up a compound of saltpeter, sulfur,
Speaker 1: and charcoal. And you might be wondering why these particular
Speaker 1: substance as well. For instance, sulfur was used for skin ailments,
Speaker 1: saltpeter for fever. And uh, the thing is when you
Speaker 1: hit just the right percentages here according to one for
Speaker 1: for saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal, it would be like sixty one,
Speaker 1: thirty and seven point six percent. Put it all together
Speaker 1: and you have gunpowder. Yeah, And that gunpowder comes together
Speaker 1: because you have mixed up the oxidizer which is the saltpeter,
Speaker 1: the potassium nitrate, and the fuel which is the charcoal
Speaker 1: and the sulfur, and so once you mix them all
Speaker 1: together like that, they can create something that burns suddenly,
Speaker 1: very rapidly. Now, in some traditions, some accounts, this discovery
Speaker 1: is attributed to a particular individual, Sun sim Now, who
Speaker 1: would have been born in UH five, and he was
Speaker 1: the so called King of Medicine. He wrote um in
Speaker 1: the translations of the titles essential Formulas for Emergencies worth
Speaker 1: a thousand pieces of Gold and then a follow up
Speaker 1: supplement to the Formulas of a thousand gold worth. And
Speaker 1: even in translation, those are simply marvelous titles. So it's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great. My next novel should be called The Story
Speaker 1: That's Worth a Million bucks. There you go, it's just
Speaker 1: good marketing. Now, it seems like it's unlikely that that
Speaker 1: this individual actually invented gunpowder, but he certainly recorded its
Speaker 1: usage uh in particularly in a book Optimization of Alchemical
Speaker 1: Processes by Sulfuric Method again translation, and it's it seemingly
Speaker 1: the oldest known reference to gunpowder, and so we can
Speaker 1: trace it roughly to his lifetime or you know, probably before.
Speaker 1: And interestingly, with its medicinal roots, gunpowder continued to be
Speaker 1: used as a curative property in um in in traditional
Speaker 1: Chinese medicine for things like ring worm and various skin
Speaker 1: issues into the sixteenth century. Yeah, and of course, saltpeter
Speaker 1: had many uses outside the creation of say, elixirs of
Speaker 1: immortality or or the creation of gunpowder. For example, saltpeter
Speaker 1: has long been a preservative for certain kinds of foods.
Speaker 1: You know, it's been a preservative for meats. In a way,
Speaker 1: it's an elixir of immort reality for salami exactly. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously gunpowder has its own enormous history, and it's gonna
Speaker 1: end up playing a much bigger role in global affairs
Speaker 1: in the centuries to follow. But the Chinese, this is essential,
Speaker 1: essential to to point out, the Chinese realized its military
Speaker 1: potential pretty early on, like during the Tang dynasty, and
Speaker 1: it was compiled in Chinese military text by ten forty.
Speaker 1: And this is notable because there's something of this this
Speaker 1: myth in Western traditions that while the Chinese invention gunpowder
Speaker 1: would ultimately require Western ingenuity to take off as a weapon,
Speaker 1: The idea that the Chinese invented something but didn't really
Speaker 1: understand what they'd invented, and nothing could really be further
Speaker 1: from the truth, because they developed rockets, fire arrows, fire lances.
Speaker 1: They were using UH long bamboo tubes that were packed
Speaker 1: with with gunpowder as early as like even thirty two,
Speaker 1: and there's evidence of bronze cannons as early as UH
Speaker 1: thirteen thirty two or eleven twenty eight. Even so, the
Speaker 1: use of military gunpowder advancements was very much a part
Speaker 1: of the Chinese world at the time, and it's just
Speaker 1: spread outward from there, transforming warfare everywhere it went. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting to consider the ongoing relationship between recreational fireworks
Speaker 1: and warfare because obviously the same chemicals can be used
Speaker 1: for both. You know, you can use gunpowder to make
Speaker 1: a harmless celebratory device or to make a cannon that
Speaker 1: kills people. And it's interesting how this association has remained
Speaker 1: in people's minds throughout the centuries because very often celebratory
Speaker 1: fireworks not not always, but very often are used to
Speaker 1: celebrate things like military victory. Is it's almost like they
Speaker 1: call to mind the battle that you're thinking back on
Speaker 1: and celebrating. Oh yeah, I mean, we see that in
Speaker 1: the United States with the Star Spangled banner, which is
Speaker 1: talking about stuff blowing up in the sky, and then
Speaker 1: especially around the fourth of July, is uh is paired
Speaker 1: with actual fireworks exploding in the sky. To get back
Speaker 1: into this world of fireworks proper, we in the Chinese origins.
Speaker 1: We can see how explosive and combustive substances come together
Speaker 1: with boo jou. You know. But let's not forget the
Speaker 1: other aspect of fireworks, the part that you you might
Speaker 1: not think about as much when you buy a bunch
Speaker 1: of fireworks or even when you set them off at night.
Speaker 1: But the next day, when you go to clean up
Speaker 1: your yard, Uh, you're going to encounter the reality of
Speaker 1: all the paper and cardboard that makes a firework possible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It often looks like there has been like a battle
Speaker 1: between armies of toilet paper rolls that just hacked each
Speaker 1: other to bits. Yeah, because even today fireworks depend on
Speaker 1: paper and cardboard. That tank you were describing earlier was
Speaker 1: inevitably made out of cardboard and paper. But as we
Speaker 1: explored in our recent two part on Stuff to with
Speaker 1: your Mind about the invention of the book the history
Speaker 1: of the book, paper was an expensive luxury in in
Speaker 1: olden times. Uh. Chinese paper had already been around for centuries.
Speaker 1: But but it was it was a it was a
Speaker 1: high priced substance. This is not the kind of thing
Speaker 1: you would just readily filled with gunpowder and set off
Speaker 1: or burn. But then during the Song dynasty we see
Speaker 1: the creation of bamboo paper, which was much more affordable,
Speaker 1: and so this was finally paper that was cost effective
Speaker 1: enough to use in fireworks. Uh, you know, pure fireworks,
Speaker 1: the kind of fire not not just the things that
Speaker 1: might amuse um, you know, individuals of great wealth, but
Speaker 1: something that could be you know, a little more available
Speaker 1: to everyone else. Yeah, there is. There's the main explosive charge,
Speaker 1: and that's wrapped together with a timed ignition device, which
Speaker 1: is the fuse. It used to be called the match.
Speaker 1: Now a number of you are probably thinking, well, that's
Speaker 1: a firecracker, and maybe that is essentially a bottle rocket.
Speaker 1: But obviously there are plenty of more elaborate fireworks. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're just thousands of types of fireworks today, and and
Speaker 1: these the more traditional, these sort of exploding, sparkling, colorful fireworks.
Speaker 1: This sort of thing didn't become popular in China until
Speaker 1: apparently the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. During the last Dynastic
Speaker 1: period of China, the Queen dynasty, and one writes that
Speaker 1: some historians credit fireworks credit these type this type of
Speaker 1: firework technology to a specialist by the name of Le
Speaker 1: Tai Uh, saying that he basically invented these four when
Speaker 1: he was asked by the Jong Jing emperor to create
Speaker 1: something special. And the story goes that he's, you know,
Speaker 1: he's been asked to create some sort of special fireworks.
Speaker 1: He goes out and he notices all the colorful sparks
Speaker 1: that are that are inside of a blackmith's shop as
Speaker 1: the blacksmith is Uh is pounding away at the steel
Speaker 1: and he decides to experiment with different sizes of iron
Speaker 1: particles mixed with the gunpowder. Yeah, and this actually does
Speaker 1: connect to the way that most colored fireworks displays are
Speaker 1: created today. They're they're often produced by by packing fireworks
Speaker 1: shells with these little pellets and as stars that include
Speaker 1: different types of chemicals. Often metal salts that wind burned
Speaker 1: create different colors. So, for example, red fireworks often have
Speaker 1: some kind of strontium content like strontium carbonate, or orange
Speaker 1: fireworks might have calcium chloride and so forth. Apparently, blue
Speaker 1: fireworks are one of the hardest colors to make, and
Speaker 1: that requires a copper or copper chloride content. But the
Speaker 1: most common form of fireworks you see in big festival
Speaker 1: displays today, you know, not the little firecrackers you set
Speaker 1: off in your yard, but big festival displays. These would
Speaker 1: generally use what might be known as the mortar or
Speaker 1: the shell model. So you've got a core explosive charge
Speaker 1: that's usually made out of black powder and a lift charge.
Speaker 1: It burns quickly. It it expands and turns into heat
Speaker 1: and gas. It shoots it up into the sky and
Speaker 1: then it is the fuses time so that when it's
Speaker 1: way up in the sky, it will reach the center
Speaker 1: charge and then it will explode and shell will be
Speaker 1: packed with all these little things, these little explosive balls
Speaker 1: called stars, and the stars can be packed in special arrangements,
Speaker 1: and the arrangements of the stars within the shell is
Speaker 1: usually what gives rise to the patterns of the exploding fireworks.
Speaker 1: And they're they're actually artisans who will make special fireworks
Speaker 1: like custom packing of the stars inside to give you
Speaker 1: the color you want in the shape of the explosion
Speaker 1: you want. So you can get hearts, you can get
Speaker 1: smiley faces or whatever, and I just got to share.
Speaker 1: By the way, I found a Wikipedia article with one
Speaker 1: of the best sentences in English I've ever read. I
Speaker 1: was looking at this the other day. It's from a
Speaker 1: Wiki article about pyrotechnic stars, and the sentence goes, pumped
Speaker 1: stars are stars that have been pumped using a star pump.
Speaker 1: I love that because, out of context, it's just a
Speaker 1: sentence that says nothing. I was trying to think, are
Speaker 1: there any other ways ways you could plug words into
Speaker 1: that sentence structure to make it work? I was thinking,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, cook to rice is rice that has
Speaker 1: been cooked using a rice cooker. There you've done quite work, though,
Speaker 1: because you can cook rice other ways. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But it's star pump as it has only one function,
Speaker 1: and that is two pump stars. It's true. Alright. On
Speaker 1: that note, we're going to take one more break, but
Speaker 1: when we come back we'll get into some of the
Speaker 1: Western tradition of fireworks. Thank thank thank Alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to look at a post on the
Speaker 1: always Wonderful Medieval Manuscripts blog on the British Library website.
Speaker 1: This post is by Alison Ray. I feel like I've
Speaker 1: mentioned pieces by this blog on the show before. I
Speaker 1: think we discussed an awesome one they had about anti
Speaker 1: theft curses in medieval manuscripts. Yes, it's just a really
Speaker 1: great blog to follow, and I'm actually going to reference
Speaker 1: a couple of posts that I came across in this episode.
Speaker 1: So this one talks about how fireworks have been a
Speaker 1: popular source of entertainment in England since as early as
Speaker 1: the fifteenth century. Ray writes that the first recorded use
Speaker 1: of fireworks in England was at King Henry the Seventh
Speaker 1: wedding celebration in fourteen eight six. And I have seen
Speaker 1: this historical claim made all over the place, and I
Speaker 1: was trying to find contemporary documentation, or at least the
Speaker 1: earliest documentation of it I could, and I could not
Speaker 1: find that. It makes me wonder how modern writers know this,
Speaker 1: But I assumed that the British Library bloggers have their
Speaker 1: their history sorted out, so I'll trust him on this one.
Speaker 1: So the wedding of King Henry the Seventh. King Henry
Speaker 1: was also known as Henry Tudor and his ascent to
Speaker 1: the throne was the ultimate conclusion of the Wars of
Speaker 1: the Roses, where the houses of Lancaster and York had
Speaker 1: struggled for control of England for like three decades. This
Speaker 1: is chronicled with some propagandistic slant in Shakespeare's play Richard
Speaker 1: the Third. Of course, Richard the Third was the last
Speaker 1: of the York kings. Henry had some kind of roughly
Speaker 1: thirty seventh in line succession claim to the throne through
Speaker 1: the line of lancast Her, but he really came to
Speaker 1: power through some political maneuvering and military victory, so his
Speaker 1: claim was of course through the Lancaster line. But he
Speaker 1: apparently got in position for power by swearing to marry
Speaker 1: Elizabeth of York, which would unite the two houses if
Speaker 1: he was victorious and Richard. Richard the third had enemies
Speaker 1: within his own house, so with some French support, Henry
Speaker 1: the Seventh landed in Wales in fourteen eighty five. He
Speaker 1: led an army against Richard's power center in London. Richard
Speaker 1: took an army out to meet him. Henry and Richard's
Speaker 1: forces fought a conclusive battle at Bosworth Field on August
Speaker 1: two five, where Richard was killed in the fighting, allegedly
Speaker 1: while trying to like strike deep behind enemy ranks and
Speaker 1: kill Henry himself to in the war immediately, and Richard
Speaker 1: the Third was apparently the last English king killed in battle.
Speaker 1: So after the battle Henry is victorious, He's like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I've basically got a claim to the throne
Speaker 1: by succession. I just wanted battle, which means God must
Speaker 1: want me to be king. So Henry was crowned at
Speaker 1: the end of October fourteen eighty five, and true to
Speaker 1: his promise, he married Elizabeth of York in January fourteen
Speaker 1: eighty six. And this marriage was of greater than normal
Speaker 1: political importance. It was more than just the pageantry of
Speaker 1: a of a royal wedding. It was in some ways
Speaker 1: the symbolic extinguishment of a dynastic war that had been
Speaker 1: raging for about thirty years. So why not a little
Speaker 1: extra celebration, Why not blow something up right. Ray's blog
Speaker 1: post also points to a fourteenth century manuscript known as
Speaker 1: the British Library royal Ms twelve b. Twenty five. This
Speaker 1: is primarily a medical text. It talks about bodily humors,
Speaker 1: herbal medicines, astrology, but it's got a recipe for fireworks,
Speaker 1: specifically fireworks rockets, and the burning glass. And according to Ray,
Speaker 1: the opening to the section on the recipes for combustion
Speaker 1: begins with references quote to Greek fire, an incendiary weapon
Speaker 1: first used by Byzantine forces against Arabic naval fleets steering
Speaker 1: Sieges on Constantinople in the late seventh century. So I
Speaker 1: think it's very interesting that a fourteenth century writer in
Speaker 1: English would say, Okay, here's a recipe for making fun
Speaker 1: recreational fireworks, but let's introduce it by talking about this
Speaker 1: terror weapon. Yeah, yeah, the terror weapon of the of
Speaker 1: the Byzantines, which which we have an entire episode on
Speaker 1: in the vault if anyone wants to listen to it.
Speaker 1: But apparently because of the danger posed by fireworks, the
Speaker 1: manuscript accompanies its recipes with protective magic spells that you
Speaker 1: can use against the fire. Quote. The protective charms against
Speaker 1: fire invokes St. Column Seal also known as Columba or
Speaker 1: column Kill, and st Agatha for protection. St Agatha was
Speaker 1: a patron saint against fire, lightning, and volcanic eruption. Uh
Speaker 1: protective charms may seem unorthodox to us today, but they
Speaker 1: were often employed in the same manner as medical recipes
Speaker 1: and religious prayers. And this is something we've talked about
Speaker 1: on the show before. How In, in late medieval and
Speaker 1: early modern writing in Europe, there's a lot of thinking
Speaker 1: that just blends magic and naturalistic or scientific knowledge, as
Speaker 1: if there were no real difference between them. You know,
Speaker 1: here's how to make an explosive powder. Here's a magic
Speaker 1: spell to cure warts. Here's a recipe for toothpaste. Here's
Speaker 1: how to know if a witch is giving you a rash.
Speaker 1: There's another British Library manuscript profile I wanted to mention,
Speaker 1: this one by curator Maddie smith In. And this is
Speaker 1: of a seventeenth century book called Pyrotechnica, written by a
Speaker 1: gunner named John Babington. And it's the first book in
Speaker 1: English that is known to be entirely about how to
Speaker 1: make fireworks for fun. It's entirely a book about recreational fireworks. Now, again,
Speaker 1: this is a much later work, maybe on us three
Speaker 1: hundred years later than the previous manuscript. It is widely
Speaker 1: attested that Queen Elizabeth the First of England loved fireworks.
Speaker 1: And note that Queen Elizabeth the First is different from
Speaker 1: Elizabeth of York, who married Henry the seventh Queen Elizabeth
Speaker 1: the First ruled from fifteen fifty eight until her death
Speaker 1: in sixteen oh three. I was looking for examples of
Speaker 1: her legendary love of fireworks, and I came across a
Speaker 1: letter written by a man named Lanahan describing the Queen's
Speaker 1: visit to Kinnelworth Castle in fifteen seventy five. And lanaham
Speaker 1: describes it like this quote. On the Sunday night, after
Speaker 1: a warning piece or two, there was a blaze of
Speaker 1: burning darts flying to and fro, beams of stars, coruscant streams,
Speaker 1: and hail of fire sparks, lightnings of wildfire on the
Speaker 1: water and on the land, flight and shot of thunderbolts,
Speaker 1: all with such continuance, terror and vehemence. The heavens thundered,
Speaker 1: the water surged, and the earth shook. Oh man, that's
Speaker 1: that's that's that's a great description. Shades of deep purple,
Speaker 1: but a great description. Well, you know, it doesn't it
Speaker 1: doesn't sound fun. It sounds really scary. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: mean that's that. Those were my earliest experiences of fireworks,
Speaker 1: just being terrified. So, uh, you know, feeling a sense
Speaker 1: of terror or safe terror is kind of part of it, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: that might be true. Of course, Shakespeare mentions fireworks in
Speaker 1: a number of his plays, or at least in one
Speaker 1: or two plays. There's there's a scene in Love's Labor's Lost, uh,
Speaker 1: where a character says, quote, the King would have me
Speaker 1: present the Princess sweet Chuck with some delightful ostentation or
Speaker 1: show or pageant or antique or firework. And apparently Queen
Speaker 1: Elizabeth liked fireworks so much that she commissioned a lord
Speaker 1: of fireworks to be in charge of the whole process
Speaker 1: that would come to be known as the fire Master
Speaker 1: of England, whose assistance were called green men because they
Speaker 1: wore hats made out of leaves to protect their heads
Speaker 1: from fire and sparks. So Queen Elizabeth had a pyromancer.
Speaker 1: That's awesome, and they're running about in these uh, in
Speaker 1: these green hats but you know, made out of like
Speaker 1: green leaves. I mean that sounds very elvin. That reminds
Speaker 1: me of what we discussed in the past about these
Speaker 1: taboos against wearing green because that is the color of
Speaker 1: the fairies. Yeah, totally. I think those ones we talked
Speaker 1: about in the past, for specifically, uh, superstition about young
Speaker 1: women wearing them or they would make the fairy princess
Speaker 1: is jealous. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. If
Speaker 1: you're already dealing with fire and fireworks for a living,
Speaker 1: why not put some leaves on your head. But so, anyway,
Speaker 1: back to this book Pyrotechnic by Babbington. It describes how
Speaker 1: to make a number of regular shell style fireworks of
Speaker 1: the kind we were talking about earlier, and how to
Speaker 1: achieve different colors. Quote for stars of a blue color,
Speaker 1: a combination of gun powder, saltpeter and sulfur VIV did
Speaker 1: the trick. He then progresses to making silver and gold
Speaker 1: rain firework wheels and fizz gigs a French firework that
Speaker 1: fizzled before it exploded. Fizz gig. Yeah, this gig like
Speaker 1: like in the Dark Crystal. But beyond that, Babington goes
Speaker 1: on in his book to give instructions for these elaborate displays,
Speaker 1: such as the dragon. The dragon was a giant wooden
Speaker 1: frame in the shape of a winged serpent that was
Speaker 1: filled and ornamented with all kinds of combustibles that would
Speaker 1: make it breathe fire and spark with fury. And one
Speaker 1: popular way of doing this dragon demonstration was to have
Speaker 1: both a wooden dragon crammed with fireworks and either a
Speaker 1: rival dragon or a figure of St. George, and then
Speaker 1: you would make them fight. Uh so this is from Smith.
Speaker 1: Quote in Pyrotechnica, Babbington instructs the reader to strap the
Speaker 1: dragon and St. George together so that when a wheel
Speaker 1: is turned quote, they will run furiously at each other.
Speaker 1: They had to be well balanced, as otherwise quote they
Speaker 1: would turn their heels upward, which would be a great
Speaker 1: disgrace to the work and the workman. It sounds like
Speaker 1: more of a disgrace that that sounds maybe like an
Speaker 1: extreme safety hazard. You included a shot here of a
Speaker 1: woodcut illustration from this book, and uh, I have to
Speaker 1: say that, combined with the description, this is pure burning man,
Speaker 1: like this is the exact spirit of that sort of
Speaker 1: like a large scale pyro technical display. Yeah, exactly, this
Speaker 1: is Elizabethan burning Man. But so there's a big question here, right, So,
Speaker 1: if if fireworks were probably invented in China and we're
Speaker 1: super popular with the English monarchy by the fifteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: how did they make that journey? How did they get
Speaker 1: from China to Europe and specifically early modern England well,
Speaker 1: it turns out that the first known European to describe
Speaker 1: the creation of black powder was Dr Mirabilis himself. Roger
Speaker 1: Bacon uh the thirteenth century English philosopher proto scientist in
Speaker 1: Franciscan friar and Dr Mirabilis I think it means technically
Speaker 1: wonderful teacher in Latin, but I like to think of
Speaker 1: him as doctor wonderful. So Roger Bacon was born somewhere
Speaker 1: in southwest England, either I think in Somerset or in Gloucestershire,
Speaker 1: between the years twelve fourteen and twelve twenty. More recent
Speaker 1: sources places birth I think around twelve nineteen or twelve twenty,
Speaker 1: and he became a brother of the Franciscan order and
Speaker 1: a scholar of great esteem and controversy. In the modern day,
Speaker 1: he has this reputation for being an early advocate of
Speaker 1: something approaching scientific empiricism, the study of nature through observation
Speaker 1: rather than just deductive principles about the divine order. Like
Speaker 1: maybe you know what if Aristotle says something about nature
Speaker 1: and then you do an experiment and discover that Aristotle
Speaker 1: is wrong. I think a lot of people might had
Speaker 1: the tendency to say like, well, you know you must
Speaker 1: have done some throng aristotles probably right, aristotles above reproach right, yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: So Bacon studied and wrote on language, on mathematics, on alchemy, astronomy,
Speaker 1: and optics. You might remember in our Camera Obscura episode
Speaker 1: of Invention we talked about how Bacon had read the
Speaker 1: works of the eleventh century Arab scholar even al Haytham,
Speaker 1: who described the principle of a pinhole camera for projecting
Speaker 1: images into a dark room, and Bacon picked up on
Speaker 1: this and conducted experiments based on al Heyatham's writings. He
Speaker 1: apparently built or at least used a camera obscura chamber
Speaker 1: for the purpose of safely observing solar eclipses in his lifetime.
Speaker 1: But he also described the use of spectacles based on
Speaker 1: glass lenses, which were not yet in wide use at
Speaker 1: the time. Uh, He conducted alchemy experiments, and he speculated
Speaker 1: on the idea of a flying machine. He kind of
Speaker 1: had a reputation as something of a wonder worker or
Speaker 1: a wizard. And again this is something that wasn't unheard
Speaker 1: of for curious scholars of the medieval and early modern
Speaker 1: period that the doctor Faustus kind of image Robert. You
Speaker 1: might remember that one of the earliest theories on the
Speaker 1: authorship of the Voyage Manuscript attributes the manuscript to Roger Bacon,
Speaker 1: though I don't think we ever found any good evidence
Speaker 1: supporting this claim. It seemed more like people just might
Speaker 1: have thought, well, who's some messed up wizard who could
Speaker 1: have created this weird book. I think the dating of
Speaker 1: the actual materials put put the book as much later
Speaker 1: than than Bacon's life. Yeah, I think if you could
Speaker 1: make a better case for John Dee than you could
Speaker 1: for Bacon. Right, But Bacon really did apparently advocate experimentalism,
Speaker 1: though this doesn't mean he was the kind of like
Speaker 1: skeptic materialist naturalist you might imagine today. It seems he
Speaker 1: advocated an empirical or experimental approach to both natural science
Speaker 1: and alchemy and magic, which you know, I can see
Speaker 1: is that might have been a reasonable mindset if you
Speaker 1: were living in thirteenth century England. But anyway, he produced
Speaker 1: some important encyclopedias of learning, beginning with his Opus majis
Speaker 1: Uh and following with some other I think other works
Speaker 1: that were called like Opus Lesser or Opus Tertiary Uh
Speaker 1: so where does the gunpowder come in? Well, in the
Speaker 1: twelve forties and a couple of his major works, Bacon
Speaker 1: just straight up described a recipe for making gunpowder as
Speaker 1: seemingly out of nowhere. So I'm going to sign a
Speaker 1: passage from the scholar Joseph Needham's work on Bacon and
Speaker 1: gunpowder in in a in a book called Science and
Speaker 1: Civilization in China from Cambridge University Press, nine seven, where
Speaker 1: he combines a couple of nearly identical passages about gunpowder
Speaker 1: from Bacon's Opus Majis and or Mayis and Opus Tertium together.
Speaker 1: But first we should look at how Bacon introduces this section,
Speaker 1: which is uh, he talks about Greek fire. He writes,
Speaker 1: certain of these work by contact only, and so destroy
Speaker 1: life malta or now up the which is a kind
Speaker 1: of bitumen plentiful in the world, when projected upon a
Speaker 1: man in armor, burns him up. Similarly, yellow petroleum i e.
Speaker 1: Oil produced from the rocks, when properly prepared or distilled,
Speaker 1: burns everything it meets by a consuming fire, not extinguishable
Speaker 1: by water, and only with great difficulty by other things.
Speaker 1: Certain inventions disturb the hearing to such a degree that
Speaker 1: if they are set off suddenly at night with sufficient skill,
Speaker 1: neither cities nor armies can endure them. No thunderclap can
Speaker 1: compare with such terrifying noises, nor lightning playing among the clouds,
Speaker 1: with such frightening flashes. And then um, and then he
Speaker 1: goes on. So this is the combined two passages about
Speaker 1: gunpowder itself. We have an example of these things that
Speaker 1: act on the senses in the sound and fire of
Speaker 1: that children's toy which is made in many diverse parts
Speaker 1: of the world, i e. A device no bigger than
Speaker 1: thumb from the violence of that salt called saltpeter, together
Speaker 1: with sulfur and willow charcoal combined into a powder. So
Speaker 1: horrible a sound is made by the bursting of a
Speaker 1: thing so small, no more than a bit of parchment
Speaker 1: containing it, that we find the ear assaulted by a
Speaker 1: noise exceeding the roar of strong thunder, and a flash
Speaker 1: brighter than the most brilliant lightning, especially if one has
Speaker 1: taken unawares. This terrible flash is very alarming. If an
Speaker 1: instrument of large size were used, no one could withstand
Speaker 1: the noise and blinding light. And if the instrument were
Speaker 1: made of solid material, the violence of the explosion would
Speaker 1: be much greater. I love this. There are aspects of
Speaker 1: it. It It maybe sound like an overstatement of the power
Speaker 1: of a simple firework, but he does get at the
Speaker 1: heart of it here. Well. Yeah, so this This is
Speaker 1: Bacon in this work in the middle of the thirteenth century,
Speaker 1: describing a totally accurate recipe for making an explosive charge. Remember,
Speaker 1: he's got all of the ingredients we talked about in
Speaker 1: the chemistry section earlier. He's got the fuel there, he's
Speaker 1: got the sulfur, he's got the saltpeter as the oxidizer.
Speaker 1: He says. You grind them together, you make a powder
Speaker 1: out of them, and that's how you get this charge.
Speaker 1: And then of course you pack it into to a
Speaker 1: roll of parchment, he says, which parchment, being a rather
Speaker 1: expensive material, also seems like maybe not a great use
Speaker 1: for it. But I don't know what else would you
Speaker 1: use at the time, I guess, but he describes it
Speaker 1: as some kind of pre existing children's toy, without saying
Speaker 1: where or when this toy would have been observed, and
Speaker 1: ends with the unmistakable observation that this combustible powder could
Speaker 1: obviously be used for violence could be used in warfare.
Speaker 1: So a lot of historians claim that this is the
Speaker 1: first time knowledge of black powder is acknowledged anywhere in Europe.
Speaker 1: But where did Bacon get this idea from? He doesn't
Speaker 1: claim to have come up with it himself. Instead, he
Speaker 1: speaks of this toy from other parts of the world
Speaker 1: without saying where. So there's an interesting question of cross
Speaker 1: fertilization of ideas here. Uh Needham Joseph Needham, in his
Speaker 1: book argues that there is ample reason for thinking that
Speaker 1: Chinese firecrackers and general explosive chemistry would have made their
Speaker 1: way back to Europe by around the time Bacon was
Speaker 1: writing uh So Needham rights quote. This description inescapably suggests
Speaker 1: to us that a sample of Chinese crackers had come
Speaker 1: into Roger Bacon's possession and that he knew what the
Speaker 1: constituents of the mixture were inside them by twelve sixty seven.
Speaker 1: That would have been perfectly possible for his fellow friars
Speaker 1: had been traveling back and forth between Western Europe and
Speaker 1: the Mongol court at Kara Koran since twelve forty five,
Speaker 1: when the Franciscan John of Plano Caprini had been sent
Speaker 1: as an envoy from Innocent the Fourth, that's Pope Innocent
Speaker 1: the Fourth to the Great Khan Uh. And then he
Speaker 1: he documents plenty of other recorded instances of of Franciscans
Speaker 1: and Dominicans and other Europeans travel back and forth to
Speaker 1: China to the Mongol court, and says that there's just
Speaker 1: really no problem imagining that someone maybe maybe knowing of
Speaker 1: Roger Bacon and saying, hey, he's this kind of like
Speaker 1: out there wizard guy. He he would enjoy a chemical
Speaker 1: curiosity from the other side of the world. Let's bring
Speaker 1: some firecrackers back for for doctor Wonderful to look at. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now this would make perfect sense. Everything lines lines up here, uh,
Speaker 1: the Chinese to the Mongols and then via these uh,
Speaker 1: these these traveling um uh clergyman back to Europe. But
Speaker 1: I would say it also seems possible that firecracker chemistry
Speaker 1: could have entered late medieval Europe through the Arab world,
Speaker 1: which was a conduit for a lot of scientific and
Speaker 1: technological knowledge from both farther East stand from the Arab
Speaker 1: world itself, but also from the lost libraries of antiquity
Speaker 1: that you know, a lot of knowledge came back into
Speaker 1: Europe that way. Yeah, And I think that's also where
Speaker 1: we see more of a direct military stream of ideas
Speaker 1: from China than down through UH through a Central Asia
Speaker 1: and UH and into the Middle East. And this instance
Speaker 1: of of Bacon making this first record of of a
Speaker 1: recipe for gunpowder in Europe is interesting and how it
Speaker 1: uh feeds into how we should think about the role
Speaker 1: of Roger Bacon in in the history of science and stuff,
Speaker 1: because despite his reputation for experimentation, which he did of
Speaker 1: course support in principle, Bacon's actual legacy in the history
Speaker 1: of knowledge might just as well be understood as one
Speaker 1: of voraciousness for sources of learning far and wide as
Speaker 1: much as it was for actual experimentation. I mean, again,
Speaker 1: the idea is not that Bacon was doing chemistry experiments
Speaker 1: and discovered how to make gunpowder. He probably got a
Speaker 1: firecracker from somewhere that had been made based on Chinese
Speaker 1: technology and then either was told or figured out how
Speaker 1: it worked. But that's a very important role in the
Speaker 1: history of knowledge as well. Just being like a great
Speaker 1: collector of ideas for anywhere you can get them, that's right,
Speaker 1: Just simply being exceedingly well read in the time where
Speaker 1: where relatively few individuals were in the grand scheme of things, right,
Speaker 1: So what came of Bacon's publishing on the subject of gunpowder. Well,
Speaker 1: some sources alleged that later in his life Roger Bacon
Speaker 1: suffered trouble of the roughly inquisitional sort, that he was
Speaker 1: imprisoned in the late twelve seventies by his brothers in
Speaker 1: the Franciscan Order. From what I can tell, the earliest
Speaker 1: record of this imprisonment comes from a work published in
Speaker 1: the thirteen seventies, so this would have been around a
Speaker 1: hundred years after the supposed events, called Chronicle of the
Speaker 1: twenty four Ministers General of the Franciscan's. So I think
Speaker 1: it's not a hundred percent clear that Bacon really was jailed.
Speaker 1: We don't have an autobiographical account or anything, but it
Speaker 1: is widely alleged, and if he was in fact thrown
Speaker 1: into prison, the exact cause of this imprisonment is not clear.
Speaker 1: I've seen it alleged interials by the Royal Society of
Speaker 1: Chemistry in the UK that Bacon's description of and possible
Speaker 1: experiments with gunpowder were what got him into trouble with
Speaker 1: the church. Since quote only God could produce thunder and lightning.
Speaker 1: But but I haven't really found any evidence that looks
Speaker 1: very good for this specific technological blasphemy being the cause
Speaker 1: of his imprisonment. Apparently the historical record is vague. We're
Speaker 1: told that it was due to something simply translated as
Speaker 1: suspected novelties in his teachings, And I guess it's not
Speaker 1: out of the question that this could refer to technology
Speaker 1: or something like gunpowder, But it could also just refer
Speaker 1: to heretical religious beliefs having to do with the end
Speaker 1: of the world and uh, the church modeling itself on
Speaker 1: the the idea of the poverty of Christ. Or it
Speaker 1: could have to do with reliance on contemporary prophecies or astrology.
Speaker 1: Just seems like there are a lot of things you
Speaker 1: could get in trouble, a lot of kinds of thought
Speaker 1: crime at the time, and it doesn't necessarily need to
Speaker 1: be gunpowder that got him into trouble, right, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: there there's so many other established paths to alleged heresy
Speaker 1: without having to draw a new line to gunpowder here.
Speaker 1: But but of course it wasn't long after Bacon's writings
Speaker 1: that you really start to see for example, firearm technology
Speaker 1: being experimented within Europe, so so that this was sort
Speaker 1: of a a germanal point in the transfer of knowledge
Speaker 1: about gunpowder to Europe. And then, of course we've already
Speaker 1: talked about all the ways that recreational fireworks became popular
Speaker 1: in the following centuries. It's interesting again we come back
Speaker 1: to this idea of gunpowder as being one of these
Speaker 1: prime inventions. We can look at it and and we can
Speaker 1: see like the way it is used to harm other people,
Speaker 1: in the way it is used as pure amusement, the
Speaker 1: dual nature of of invention. Right. But then also we're
Speaker 1: we're talking about how it travels, and so it seems
Speaker 1: entirely possible that we're looking in the situation where it
Speaker 1: is via novelty that the technology more readily travels to
Speaker 1: the West. Uh, for a number of reasons, one of
Speaker 1: which being that, uh, you know, a culture is going
Speaker 1: to be far less willing to share the secrets of
Speaker 1: its weaponry. Um, but in terms of its mere enjoyments, Uh,
Speaker 1: that that that may travel a little easier. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can totally see that. Uh. You know something that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I was reading about fireworks in the contemporary world Obviously,
Speaker 1: we know that in the United States people tend to
Speaker 1: use a lot of firecrackers and fireworks around the Independence Day,
Speaker 1: the fourth of July. But I was reading that even today,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of the world's fireworks are still made
Speaker 1: in China. I was reading an article on CNN that
Speaker 1: reported that as of twenty sixteen, over nine percent of
Speaker 1: the fireworks used on American Independence Day were manufactured in China.
Speaker 1: And there's still all kinds of artisans and crafts people
Speaker 1: working in China that like hand make fireworks. That that
Speaker 1: is impressive to think about that because generally, when I
Speaker 1: think of fireworks, I think of the seemingly mass produced
Speaker 1: exam amples that that one finds that fireworks stores and
Speaker 1: firework tents, right, Yeah, and I'm sure, I'm sure some
Speaker 1: fireworks are mass produced by a more automated process. But uh,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I was watching some short documentary segments about
Speaker 1: actually like companies that still just have basically people making
Speaker 1: them by hand using sort of hand cranked machinery and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you certainly don't see any here in the States at
Speaker 1: farmers markets where someone is like, these are my fireworks.
Speaker 1: I made these, you can watch me make them. I
Speaker 1: roll my own Roman candles, etcetera. But maybe I'm just
Speaker 1: going to the wrong farmers markets. Who knows. No, this
Speaker 1: is an interesting point you raise. Rachel and I were
Speaker 1: actually talking about this here at the house, about whether
Speaker 1: you know you would have like craft fireworks in the
Speaker 1: same way you see, I don't know so much of
Speaker 1: an artisanal craft movement with other types of products and
Speaker 1: food items these days. Yeah, and and would you would
Speaker 1: one trust that more or less? I feel like my
Speaker 1: instinct and maybe this is by virtue of of just
Speaker 1: not being um accustomed to it, I feel like I
Speaker 1: would be suspicious of of handmade fireworks that just some
Speaker 1: random stranger made um, I don't know. And maybe again
Speaker 1: just because it's something I've I've not encountered before. Personally,
Speaker 1: I guess it's I want there to be some sort
Speaker 1: of like factory standard for my explosives. I guess right.
Speaker 1: You want to You want to know that it's been
Speaker 1: through the inspections or something. Yeah. Isn't it weird that
Speaker 1: our intuitions sometimes work that way? You think, like a
Speaker 1: mass produced item, that that seems safer, that seems like, uh,
Speaker 1: that seems like it's been through a process. I would
Speaker 1: love to hear from anyone out there who makes their
Speaker 1: own fireworks or know someone who does, for any insight
Speaker 1: into this, because just I haven't researched this in full,
Speaker 1: but just glancing around, it looks like there are advocates
Speaker 1: out there for making your own fireworks and uh and
Speaker 1: and even doing so safely. Um, but this is just
Speaker 1: a whole world I have no exposure to. Well, quick
Speaker 1: liability show. We're not advising people to do that. No, no,
Speaker 1: we are not advising you to make your own fireworks.
Speaker 1: Just if you are, if you already have knowledge of
Speaker 1: this world, let us know about it. I would like
Speaker 1: to learn more. I would not like to to buy
Speaker 1: any of them, though. You know what I want to
Speaker 1: know from an expert on fireworks is whether pump stars
Speaker 1: or stars that have been pumped using a star pump
Speaker 1: or not? Yeah? And then how do you make the
Speaker 1: star pump? Do you have to? Is there something like
Speaker 1: you made from like residue from pumping a star? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Could all be interconnected? The star pump sounds
Speaker 1: like a wonderful science fiction device. It does. Yeah, some
Speaker 1: sort of crazy Kardashiev level two technology bust about the
Speaker 1: star Pump. But anyway, uh, that is it for fireworks
Speaker 1: for this episode. Hopefully we you know, provided some additional
Speaker 1: insight into the the the origin of fireworks and how
Speaker 1: this technology then took off in Western Europe as well.
Speaker 1: So a little more to think about than if you
Speaker 1: find yourself staring up at the sky in the next
Speaker 1: few months, in the next some type point over the
Speaker 1: next year and watching these various colorful, glittering explosions take place, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, understanding what what is chemically going on and
Speaker 1: also what is uh culturally and historically going on before you.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you would like to check out
Speaker 1: other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you can
Speaker 1: find us wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that
Speaker 1: happens to be. You can help us out by rating, reviewing,
Speaker 1: and subscribing. Uh those are the three acts of kindness
Speaker 1: you can do to help out the show. But also
Speaker 1: just tell other human beings about us next time you
Speaker 1: need to recommend a podcast, uh, you know, maybe mentioned
Speaker 1: an episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind that to
Speaker 1: couch your fancy. That's right, b our Star Pumps anyway,
Speaker 1: huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 1: say hi, you can mail us at contact. That's Stuff
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