DYNAMITE

DYNAMITE

Explosives, blasting paths for the westward thrust of railroads and clearing forest acres for tillage, sparked the advance of America's expanding frontiers. Today explosives rank with electricity, steam and petroleum, as a motive force indispensable to the life of the community they helped to build.

What was the First Explosive?

The earliest known explosive was black gunpowder, a mixture of powdered charcoal, sulphur and saltpeter (potassium nitrate). The Chinese are usually credited with having discovered gunpowder, and there is no doubt that they were making firecrackers with it at least 2,000 years ago. Marco Polo, who visited China about 1,200 years ago, noticed the explosive power of the black mixture, which was later called gunpowder, and learned how to make it.

The famous Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon, is thought to have made gunpowder in 1246. As early as 1346 gunpowder and wooden cannon helped the English defeat the French at the Battle of Crecy.