Development and use of explosives over the past century - Essay Example

The first record of the usage of it exists dates back to around early 1600s in China (Tanner, 2014). During this time, the black powder was usually used in Hungary for blasting purposes. Mostly the quarries used the black powder for mining purpose blasting. The next mention of the uses of black powder is found in the context of tin mine blasting in the countries such as England after which the black powder was adopted by the Switzerland for road construction (Kelly, 2004, pp.198). The first documented form of mention of the use of black powder was in the year 1605 when Guy Fawkes put barrels of explosives in the British Parliament to blow up the building and assassinate the then king of England, King James I.

This incident was named the “Gunpowder Plot”. It was one of the earliest conspiracies to involve the use of explosives and the black powder. This conspiracy of assassinating the King was not successful as the person plotting it was apprehended beforehand and caught. Another mention of the black gunpowder is prominent in the history is during the year 1773 when the people who went on with the demolition gathered 150 pounds of black gunpowder to demolish the Holy Trinity Cathedral which was 700 years old and one of the most oldest church in Waterford, Ireland.

Later a report was published in the then famous newspaper named The Irish Times that the entire church was reduced to rubble within minutes and this incident was accompanied with a deafening loud boom that shook the entire area. This incident is important in the history of explosives as it marks as the first successful attempt in which the explosives blew down an entire structure and caused mass collateral damage. America adopted the use of explosives for the demolition purposes almost as early as 1850s.

It was during this time that San Francisco was torn by a continuous series of many great fires. The use of the explosives in this case was because the city council members wanted to