Fireworks rock, unless you are a toddler or a household pet and the fear of thunderous explosions outweighs the beauty of airborne glitter, leaving you to wonder why, on the hottest day of the year, adult American humans purposely drink beer, then light stuff of fire.

For the rest of us, though, they symbolize the home of the free and the brave (and other people who, I imagine, Thomas Jefferson had not envisioned pursuing happiness in spandex when they first laid eyes on the Jersey Shore), and they carry a history far older, though just as international, as our great country itself.

Like most things American, fireworks came from China. It was over 2,000 years ago that someone — probably a teenage boy — threw dried bamboo into fire, discovering a boom never before heard by pyromaniac ears. Word spread of this magnificent noise, and soon teenagers everywhere were lighting bamboo on fire to ward off evil spirits.

Sometime after inventing paper but before the crab rangoon, the Chinese invented gunpowder when a chemist, trying to find the elixir of life, accidentally set fire to a sulfur concoction just prior to getting banned from the laboratory. The remaining scientists decided to stuff this flammable mixture into bamboo and aim it at their fallen colleague’s house, creating an even louder bang with celestial sparkles that scared evil spirits and, more importantly, wounded enemy combatants.

Hundreds of years later European explorers traveled to China, returning with a printing press that would one day be used to print the Declaration of Independence (and a self-help book by Star Jones). They also returned with fireworks.

By 1777 these fabulous flammables had made their way to the United States, as it is documented that early patriots celebrated the first anniversary of declaring independence with home fireworks displays.

It is not documented that these celebrations included unintentional dismemberment, but I have my theories, one of which stems from Independence Day 1986 when my younger brother accidentally lit a cannon-shaped firecracker then promptly dropped it on the ground, aimed directly at my grandmother. Grandma, still trying to figure out how an actor had become president, was sitting in a lawn chair on the driveway wearing a dress, sensible heels and a look of complete confusion when her son, my dad, saw the lit cannon aimed toward her and, in a move from his football days of old, quickly heaved Grandma out of the line of fire.

So tonight as you celebrate 235 years of true patriots who defend our country in spite of our questionable affinity for things such as spray tans and cheese that squirts out of a can, give a nod to our firecracking friends in the far east and remember the words of Thomas Jefferson that ring in my ears every time I think about the night my brother almost set Grandma on fire, “The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.”

Have a safe and happy Fourth!