The road to plentiful aluminum was long, and literally dozens of important scientists were involved over a period of centuries in the effort to purify the metal. In the end, the solution would come almost simultaneously from two scientists, each just 22 years of age.
The appeal of one strange object, which achieved dizzying popularity in my lifetime, and today lives on mostly for nostalgia, is not so difficult to explain. All you need to do is turn one on and wait.
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.