Invention

• The earliest forms of lighters were converted pistols and used gunpowder in the 16th century. A German chemist, Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner, invented one of the first lighters in the early 1820s which worked by a reaction of hydrogen to a platinum sponge. This device was very heavy and dangerous, so production eventually stopped at the end of the 19th century.
  
  

Flint

• The invention and development of the flint led to the birth of modern lighters. In 1903 Carl Auer von Welsbach patented the invention of ferrocerium, which has been colloquialized and named flint. This development made it possible for companies to manufacture safe and inexpensive lighters for the mass market.
  
  

During the War

• In the first World War, soldiers improvised to create a kind of home-made lighter using empty bullet cartridges. They preferred them to matches because they feared that the initial spark or glow caused by a match would give their position away to the enemy.
  
  

Windproof Lighters

• Although Zippo lighters have been marketed as windproof, the only truly windproof lighters are those that mix the fuel with air. It is a common misconception that higher pressure butane will produce a windproof flame. However, they work by an electric spark that starts the initial flame and heats a coil, which when hot enough sustains a reaction to cause the fuel to mix with the air and burn on contact. Essentially, the flame is constantly reignited by the heat of the coil.