Lighters were invented a little earlier than light bulbs, including the gu 10 variety. The 16th century witnessed the invention of the first lighter though in a very different form to the lighter with which we are now familiar. These lighters dating to the 1500’s were converted flintlock pistols that utilized gunpowder.

In 1823, another form of lighter was invented by a German chemist named Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner, called unsurprisingly Döbereiner’s Lamp. A reaction between hydrogen and a platinum sponge created a massive output of heat. The risks involved and the cumbersome size and weight of the lamp led to its discontinuation at the culmination of the nineteenth century. Modern lighters were made possible by the patenting of ferrocerium by Carl Auer von Welsbach. When ferrocerium is scratched, it emits a large spark, which remains the method by which the fuel in our modern day lighters is lit. In 1932, the Zippo company and lighter were created by George G. Blaisdell, the Zippo becoming characterized for its reliability and marketing as ‘wind-proof’.