Dynamite

Gunpowder was invented by the Chinese during their search for the elixir of life. They didn’t use it for more than fireworks or innovate on it but people like the Mongolians used it for small hand canons. When the western people like Marco Polo came to China they brought some of it back to Europe and when they realized its explosive capabilities they used it to make weaponry. Gunpowder stayed as the biggest and strongest explosive until the early 1800s. In the early 1800s an Italian chemist discovered nitroglycerin which is a highly unstable explosive that deteriorates over time and will explode if it gets shook to much. When telling his friends and colleagues about his discovery he advised them not use it if possible and before telling them about it he had kept it a secret for a little less than a year because he was scared of it. It was so powerful that it quickly replaced gunpowder in mining and for blowing holes in mountains so trains can go through. But it was so unstable it would often explode en route which often killed people. A man named Alfred Nobel was very interested in explosives since his father made bombs for the Russian czar like the underwater mine. So him, his father, and his brother opened a factory to make nitroglycerin. Unfortunately the factory exploded, killing 5 people including his brother. This made him want to make a safe version of nitroglycerin so he eventually made dynamite which is a stable nitroglycerin and it made him rich. But since dynamite is used by terrorists he spent all of it making the Nobel peace prize to make up for it.