One thing you might not have known about NASA is their role in the development of air traffic management. According to the FAA there are an average of 45,000 flights every day in the US, and every one of those planes needs to be able to take off, fly, and land in an incredibly complex network of tangled paths, all without running into one another.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.