Working with fire probably began about half a million years ago when patriarchal cavemen realized that they felt cold and began rubbing pieces of wood together until the friction caused an ignition.
It is only within the last 200 years or so that fireworks was correctly interpreted as being a form of energy where the flames are defined as regions of luminous hot gas.
By about the eighth century AD , the Chinese alchemists, amongst others, were preoccupied with discovering the elixir of life . Concoctions were made containing all manner of substances including oils, honey and beeswax, but among the most significant, were the ingredients sulfur and saltpeter.
A bout 1000 AD the Chinese were using a propellant similar to gunpowder in crude forms of rockets fireworks(Flying Fire),together with grenades and even toxic smokes. For example, a recipe in the Wu Ching Tsung Yao dated 1044 describes a mixture, containing sulfur, saltpeter, arsenic salts, lead salts, oils and waxes to give a toxic incendiary that could be launched from a catapult.
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