News
The explosive history of fireworks, from ancient China to Revolutionary America
Spectators watch as fireworks erupt over the Washington Monument on July 4, 2022, in Washington, D.C.
Nathan Howard/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Nathan Howard/Getty Images
If you don’t see them, you hear them. On any July Fourth or New Year’s Eve, it’s common to experience the loud pop of a firework or see it colorfully explode into the sky and hang there briefly.
Pyrotechnic amusements from sparklers to Roman candles have long been a staple of celebrations in the U.S. and beyond, helping to mark national holidays, sporting events and more.
“They have become a global phenomenon, and they have become almost, if you like, the accepted way in which big events are celebrated,” said John Withington, author of the upcoming book, A History of Fireworks from Their Origins to the Present Day.
But the elaborate, computer-controlled displays of contemporary fireworks shows are a long way from the medium’s simpler beginnings in ancient China.
Fireworks began in ancient China before spreading West
The thinking goes that someone living in China around the first century B.C. threw a piece of bamboo on a fire and it exploded with a bang. Bamboo stalks contain air pockets that can expand and blow up in extreme heat. According to Withington, Chinese travelers would carry bamboo on journeys in case they needed to create a loud noise to scare away wild animals.
The next major development came around the ninth century, when gunpowder was invented. Chinese fabricators loaded up bamboo stalks with gunpowder to create perhaps the world’s first manufactured fireworks, and later began using paper tubes as well, History.com said. These were deployed to ward off evil spirits and celebrate births and weddings, according to the Smithsonian.
By the 12th century, fireworks were being lit for entertainment purposes in China’s imperial court, Withington said. Rudimentary fireworks then made their way to Europe around the 14th century, where Italian artists constructed displays resembling theatrical sets called “machines” and set off fireworks inside them.
Fireworks became even more complex thanks to advances in chemistry. The 19th century saw potassium chlorate used to elicit brilliant colors in fireworks, such as red and green, and enhance their brightness, according to Withington.
Over the years, innovations in technology led to some curious suggestions for how fireworks could help solve modern problems. Whalers experimented with rocket-powered harpoons in the late 1800s, and inventor Gerhard Zucker attempted to use pyrotechnic rockets to deliver mail in the 1930s.
A July Fourth tradition
Europeans who made their way to the Americas brought fireworks with them. It’s possible that Capt. John Smith, who was saved by Pocahontas according to legend, set off fireworks in Jamestown in 1608.
On July 3, 1776, the day after the Continental Congress voted for independence from Great Britain, John Adams wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, imagining future celebrations of the occasion. (Though Congress voted for the Declaration of Independence on the 2nd, it was approved, signed and printed on the 4th.) Adams suggested those observances should include “illuminations,” or fireworks.
“It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more,” Adams wrote.
The following year, one of the first organized July Fourth celebrations was held in Philadelphia and included a fireworks display. “The evening was closed with the ringing of bells, and at night there was a grand exhibition of fireworks (which began and concluded with thirteen rockets) on the Commons, and the city was beautifully illuminated,” a story in the Pennsylvania Evening Post reported.
To critics, however, fireworks weren’t just a flashy racket — they were also deadly. On Independence Day of 1903, more than 460 people were killed in fireworks accidents, according to Withington.
A Pennsylvania attorney named Charles Pennypacker wrote in a letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer that year that Americans should hold a “quiet and sane observance” of the holiday. They could take a trolley ride, sit under a tree or bake a cake, Pennypacker suggested.
It didn’t go over too well with some. “On July 3, 1904, so the day before Independence Day,” Withington said, “some local young people gathered outside his house and started letting off fireworks and generally creating mayhem.”
Still, the “Safe and Sane” movement gained traction among some city officials who hoped to create calmer July Fourth celebrations. Chicago’s mayor outlawed the discharge of fireworks, while Santa Fe held a beauty pageant in place of the typical festivities, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
Fireworks today
The interest in fireworks never fizzled out, and they remain available across almost the entire U.S. today.
Only Massachusetts bans all forms of consumer fireworks, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association (APA). Every other state and the District of Columbia permit the sale of some or all types of fireworks.
According to the APA, fireworks remain popular. Consumers bought 246.5 million pounds of fireworks last year and 436.4 million pounds the year before that, industry figures show.
Yet they continue to pose a safety risk both to professionals working with commercial-grade fireworks and those lighting the odd firecracker for fun.
According to a recent report by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, 9,700 people were treated in emergency rooms for fireworks injuries last year, eight of whom died. Two-thirds of the injuries occurred in the weeks before and after July 4.
But safety experts say there are some best practices people can follow to have a blast without getting hurt, such as lighting fireworks outside, not holding lit fireworks in your hand and not using fireworks when impaired by alcohol or drugs.
According to KCUR, fireworks can also pose a risk to human health by producing particulate matter and other pollutants and harm the environment by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
One observer of the current Senate race in Louisiana noted that Sen. Bill Cassidy could lose his reelection bid.
Annie Flanagan for NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Annie Flanagan for NPR
Sen. Bill Cassidy lost Saturday’s Louisiana Republican primary according to a race call by the Associated Press.
Cassidy, who served two terms in the Senate, was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict President Trump after the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. That vote put him at odds with Trump and his MAGA coalition, ultimately leading Trump to push Rep. Julia Letlow to run against Cassidy.
Cassidy’s bid for a third term was viewed as a test of Trump’s grip on the party–and of what voters want from their representatives in Washington. The primary pitted Cassidy, a veteran lawmaker, former physician and chair of the powerful Senate health committee, against Letlow, a political newcomer and a millennial MAGA loyalist.
A detailed view of a hat that reads, Run Julia Run, is seen at a campaign event for Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA) on May 6, 2026 in Franklinton, Louisiana.
Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images
A former college administrator, Letlow won a special election in 2021 for the House seat her late husband, Luke, was set to assume before he died from COVID in 2020.
In Congress, Letlow sponsored a bill to collect oral histories from the pandemic and has focused on education and children. She introduced the “Parents Bill of Rights Act,” which would allow parents to review classroom materials like library books and require schools to notify parents if their child requests different pronouns, locker rooms or sports teams.
She also serves on the powerful appropriations committee and has embraced Trump’s agenda.
Letlow, who came first in Saturday’s primary, will face Louisiana state Treasurer John Fleming in the runoff on June 27. Cassidy came in third.
The election result is a victory for President Trump who has put Republican loyalty to the test on the ballot so far this year in Indiana state senate primaries and in Cassidy’s race.
Another major test of Trump’s influence comes in Kentucky’s primary on Tuesday when Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who has found himself at odds with the president, faces a challenger endorsed by Trump.
News
Brass bands in Beijing make way for sticker shock at home as Trump returns to escalating inflation
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump returned from the spectacle of a Chinese state visit to a less than welcoming U.S. economy — with the military band and garden tour in Beijing giving way to pressure over how to fix America’s escalating inflation rate.
Consumer inflation in the United States increased to 3.8% annually in April, higher than what he inherited as the Iran war and the Republican president’s own tariffs have pushed up prices. Inflation is now outpacing wage gains and effectively making workers poorer. The Cleveland Federal Reserve estimates that annual inflation could reach 4.2% in May as the war has kept oil and gasoline prices high.
Trump’s time with Chinese leader Xi Jinping appears unlikely to help the U.S. economy much, despite Trump’s claims of coming trade deals. The trip occurred as many people are voting in primaries leading into the November general election while having to absorb the rising costs of gasoline, groceries, utility bills, jewelry, women’s clothing, airplane tickets and delivery services. Democrats see the moment as a political opportunity.
“He’s returning to a dumpster fire,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal think tank focused on economic issues. “The president will not have the faith and confidence of the American people — the economy is their top issue and the president is saying, ‘You’re on your own.’”
The president’s trip to Beijing and his recent comments that indicated a tone-deafness to voters’ concerns about rising prices have suggested his focus is not on the American public and have undermined Republicans who had intended to campaign on last year’s tax cuts as helping families.
Trump described the trip as a victory, saying on social media that Xi “congratulated me on so many tremendous successes,” as the U.S. president has praised their relationship.
Trump told reporters that Boeing would be selling 200 aircraft — and maybe even 750 “if they do a good job” — to the Chinese. He said American farmers would be “very happy” because China would be “buying billions of dollars of soybeans.”
“We had an amazing time,” Trump said as he flew home on Air Force One, and told Fox News’ Bret Baier in an interview that gasoline prices were just some “short-term pain” and would “drop like a rock” once the war ends.
Inflationary pain is not a factor in how Trump handles Iran
Trump departed from the White House for China by saying the negotiations over the Iran war depended on stopping Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
That remark prompted blowback because it suggested to some that Trump cared more about challenging Iran than fighting inflation at home. Trump defended his words, telling Fox News: “That’s a perfect statement. I’d make it again.”
The White House has since stressed that Trump is focused on inflation.
Asked later about the president’s words, Vice President JD Vance said there had been a “misrepresentation” of the remarks. White House spokesman Kush Desai said the “administration remains laser-focused on delivering growth and affordability on the homefront” while indicating actions would be taken on grocery prices.
But as Trump appeared alongside Xi, new reports back home showed inflation rising for businesses and interest rates climbing on U.S. government debt.
His comments that Boeing would sell 200 jets to China caused the company’s stock price to fall because investors had expected a larger number. There was little concrete information offered about any trade agreements reached during the summit, including Chinese purchases of U.S. exports such as liquefied natural gas and beef.
“Foreign policy wins can matter politically, but only if voters feel stability and affordability in their daily lives,” said Brittany Martinez, a former Republican congressional aide who is the executive director of Principles First, a center-right advocacy group focused on democracy issues.
“Midterms are almost always a referendum on cost of living and public frustration, and Republicans are not immune from the same inflation and affordability pressures that hurt Democrats in recent cycles,” she added.
Democrats see Trump as vulnerable
Democratic lawmakers are seizing on Trump’s comments before his trip as proof of his indifference to lowering costs. There is potential staying power of his remarks as Americans head into Memorial Day weekend facing rising prices for the hamburgers and hot dogs to be grilled.
“What Americans do not see is any sympathy, any support, or any plan from Trump and congressional Republicans to lower costs – in fact, they see the opposite,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday.
Vance faulted the Biden administration for the inflation problem even though the inflation rate is now higher than it was when Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 with a specific mandate to fix it.
“The inflation number last month was not great,” Vance said Wednesday, but he then stressed, “We’re not seeing anything like what we saw under the Biden administration.”
Inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 under Biden, a Democrat. By the time Trump took the oath of office, it was a far more modest 3%.
Trump’s inflation challenge could get harder
The data tells a different story as higher inflation is spreading into the cost of servicing the national debt.
Over the past week, the interest rate charged on 10-year U.S. government debt jumped from 4.36% to 4.6%, an increase that implies higher costs for auto loans and mortgages.
“My fear is that the layers of supply shocks that are affecting the U.S. economy will only further feed into inflationary pressures,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon.
Daco noted that last year’s tariff increases were now translating into higher clothing prices. With the Supreme Court ruling against Trump’s ability to impose tariffs by declaring an economic emergency, his administration is preparing a new set of import taxes for this summer.
Daco stressed that there have been a series of supply shocks. First, tariffs cut into the supply of imports. In addition, Trump’s immigration crackdown cut into the supply of foreign-born workers. Now, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off the vital waterway used to ship 20% of global oil supplies.
“We’re seeing an erosion of growth,” Daco said.
Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, the Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator, said she was fired from the agency Friday after she declined to resign.
She said she did not know who had ordered her firing or why, nor whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knew of her fate. The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The departure reflected the upheaval at the F.D.A., days after the resignation of Dr. Marty Makary, the agency commissioner. Dr. Makary had become a lightning rod for critics of the agency’s decisions to reject applications for rare disease drugs and to delay a report meant to supply damaging evidence about the abortion drug mifepristone. He also spent months before his departure pushing back on the White House’s requests for him to approve more flavored vapes, the reason he ultimately cited for leaving.
Dr. Hoeg’s hiring had startled public health leaders who were familiar with her track record as a vaccine skeptic, and she played a leading role in some of the agency’s most divisive efforts during her tenure. She worked on a report that purportedly linked the deaths of children and young adults to Covid vaccines, a dossier the agency has not released publicly. She was also the co-author of a document describing Mr. Kennedy’s decision to pare the recommendations for 17 childhood vaccines down to 11.
But in an interview on Friday, Dr. Hoeg said she “stuck with the science.”
“I am incredibly proud of the work we were doing,” Dr. Hoeg said, adding, “I’m glad that we didn’t give in to any pressures to approve drugs when it wasn’t appropriate.”
As the director of the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, she was a political appointee in a role that had been previously occupied by career officials. An epidemiologist who was trained in the United States and Denmark, she worked on efforts to analyze drug safety and on a panel to discuss the use of serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most widely prescribed class of antidepressants, during pregnancy. She also worked on efforts to reduce animal testing and was the agency’s liaison to an influential vaccine committee.
She made sure that her teams approved drugs only when the risk-benefit balance was favorable, she said.
The firing worsens the leadership vacuum at the F.D.A. and other agencies, with temporary leaders filling the role of commissioner, food chief and the head of the biologics center, which oversees vaccines and gene therapies. The roles of surgeon general and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also unfilled.
-
Arkansas2 minutes agoSuburban sprawl has reached a dead end in Northwest Arkansas, planners say | Arkansas Democrat Gazette
-
California8 minutes ago3 people killed, several others injured after driver crashes into crowd in Oakland, California
-
Colorado14 minutes agoThese Colorado school districts want their students back. So they’re adding online classes
-
Connecticut20 minutes agoAt least 50 people charged with animal cruelty in ‘significant’ police operation in Tolland Saturday
-
Delaware26 minutes agoMassive fire destroys historic church in Wilmington, Delaware
-
Florida32 minutes ago
A Newly Built Oceanfront Compound in the Florida Keys With Its Own Sandy Beach Lists for $40 Million
-
Georgia38 minutes agoHonolulu Police Chief Candidate Under Investigation In Georgia
-
Hawaii44 minutes agoOdds of El Nino forming this summer increase – West Hawaii Today
