Aerial Shell Fireworks - History and Facts

Fireworks were invented in China in 7th century AD. The knowledge of Chinese firework invention spread wide and far with adventurers traveling around the world. In the middle of the 13th Century, it was Marco Polo who brought the science of firework to Europe. The Arabs learned from the Chinese the art of making fireworks and called it as ‘China Snow’. The Italians were the first Europeans to use gunpowder for manufacturing fireworks. In the 18th century, Germany became the fireworks leader among the European nations (along with Italy). And the Italians should also be credited for developing beautiful aerial shells that could be launched upward, lighting up the night sky into a rainbow of colors.

Fireworks come in dozens of varieties from consumer firecrackers to very complicated pyrotechnics used for professional displays.

The shell of firework normally consists of four parts:
Container – this is usually a pasted paper and string formed into a cylinder.
Stars – cubes, spheres or cylinders of a sparkler-like composition.
Fuse – this provides a time delay so the shell will explode at the right altitude.
Bursting charge – in the shell, there is a firecracker-like charge at the center.
There is a small cylinder which contains the lifting charge located just below the shell.

When the lifting charge fires and launch the shell, it also lights the fuse of the shell. The fuse burns while the shell rises to the correct altitude and then ignites its bursting charge so it explodes.

The stars (balls that contain something like sparkler compound) are poured into the tube, and surrounded by black powder. When its fuse burns into the shell, it will ignite the bursting charge and cause the shell to explode. After that, the explosion will ignite the outside of these stars, which then begin to burn with bright showers of sparks. The stars would be thrown in all directions and what you are going to see is the huge sphere of sparkling light.

Some shells contain stars of different compositions and colors to create brighter or softer light, more or less sparks, etc. Multibreak shells may also consist of a shell filled with other shells. The pattern that an aerial shell paints in the sky will depend on the arrangement of star pellets inside the shell.