Get ready for Bonfire Night with the OU Library

[[[image-0 medium right]]] This Sunday, towns and cities across England will celebrate Bonfire Night with a bonfire and, of course, a fireworks display. Modern displays are an awe inspiring spectacle of different colours, visual effects and, of course, whizzes, fizzes and bangs that are loved by people of all ages.

Fireworks in China have been around for about 2000 years. In England, there are records of fireworks displays as far back as the 16^th century – although they were briefly made illegal in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The early fireworks did not produce coloured sparks (these would not appear until the 1830s), and were simply thrown onto a fire to ignite them.

You can learn more about the history of and science behind fireworks with this ebook, ‘Chemistry of Fireworks’.