For more than 100,000 years, humans have been playing with fire. But no one could create a really easy way to start a fire until a British pharmacist tried to clean his stirring utensil.
In 1826, was stirring a pot of chemicals when he noticed a dried lump had formed on the end of the mixing stick. Without thinking, he tried to scrape off the dried gob and 鈥� all of a sudden 鈥� it ignited.
Mr. Walker sold the first strikeable matches at a local bookstore. The 鈥渇riction lights鈥� were three inches long and came neatly in a box with a piece of sandpaper.
Walker wasn鈥檛 interested in patenting the idea, so Samuel Jones copied the matches and sold 鈥淟ucifers.鈥� They were a little more practical than Walker鈥檚 friction lights. Lucifers were shorter and came in a smaller cardboard box for easy carrying.
The earliest description of a match-like product appears in a Chinese book titled 鈥淩ecords of the Unworldly and the Strange,鈥� by , circa 950 AD. They were called 鈥渇ire-inch sticks鈥� and used sulfur to start the flame. Still, they were not strikeable.
French chemist invented the first self-igniting match in 1805. Mr. Chancel鈥檚 method involved a wooden splint tipped with sugar and potassium chlorate that was carefully dipped into a small bottle of concentrated sulfuric acid.
Chancel鈥檚 method was highly unpleasant and dangerous. The mix of chemicals produced a yellow smelly gas called chlorine dioxide, which explodes when it comes into contact with pretty much anything.
Today, matches are made with non-poisonous red phosphorus, discovered by Johan Edvard Lundstrom. The Diamond Match Company was the first to sell 鈥渟afety matches鈥� in the US, forfeiting their patent rights to allow all match companies to produce safe matches.
