Fire cats go!

A warfare manual by the siege warfare professional Franz Helm from around 1530 includes a curious illustration of a cat carrying fire. The manual suggests that when left with no other options, capture a pigeon or cat from the local area, and strap a bomb or fire to its back in a container. The idea was that the freaked out animal would run home and light the city on fire. However cats being contrary as they are, would probably run under your ammunition wagon or snuggle onto your commanders lap. Which is probably why we don't have any record of fire cats used in battle.

What was an explosion?

The word explosion comes from the Latin explosio— the act of driving off by clapping. (this only makes me think that Monty Python must have known this) The first recorded use of the word in English takes place in the Glossographia in 1665; the word is defined as meaning “ a casting off or rejecting, a hissing a thing out.” The definitions of scorn or driving away with a loud noise are the only usages until the mid 1700s. The first time explosion is used to refer to something blowing up is in 1762 when the definition changed to,  “The action of ‘going off’ with a loud noise under the influence of suddenly developed internal energy; an instance of this; also used of electric discharges. Of a boiler, bomb, gun, etc.: The action of suddenly bursting or flying in pieces from a similar cause.” Oxford English Dictionary and Miriam Webster

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AIM-9_explodes_F-89_ground_target_1979.jpeg