Year			Keyword		Event  and Description
1802	ch	*	du Pont	K	E. I. du Pont de Nemours has its beginnings in a gunpowder plant built on the Brandywine River near Wilmington, Del., by Eleuthére lrénee du Pont, 31, whose father returns to France, where he will serve a dozen years hence as secretary to the provisional government (see 1799; 1803).
1839	ch	*	Goodyear	K	Charles Goodyear, 39, pioneers effective use of rubber. The former Philadelphia hardware merchant has obtained rights to a sulfur process for treating rubber, has accidentally overheated a mixture of rubber, sulfur, and white lead, and stumbles on a way to “vulcanize” rubber to make a hard and durable substance that chars but does not melt. Goodyear has sold the patent on his father Amasa Goodyear’s pitchfork (the first steel-tine pitchfork) to finance his experiments with raw rubber, which has been used to some extent earlier as in Macintosh raincoats (see 1823). Rubber’s tendency to become sticky in hot weather and lose its elasticity in cold weather has limited its commercial potential; Goodyear’s vulcanization process does not solve all the problems but will extend rubber’s uses (see 1844).
1841	ch	*	Dye	K	German chemist C. J. Fritzsche shows that treating indigo with potassium hydroxide produces an oil (aniline) (see
1851	ch	*	Coal	K	Scottish industrial chemist James Young, 40, patents a method for producing paraffin by dry distillation of coal. Young will manufacture naphtha, lubricating oils, paraffin oil, and solid paraffin from Bogshead coal and, later, from Scottish shale (see kerosene, 1855).
1855	ch	*	Plastics	K	Celluloid is patented by English chemist Alexander Parkes, 42, who has developed the first man-made plastic material
1856	ch	*	Dye	K	A mauve dye produced from coal tar by English chemistry student William Henry Perkin, 18, is the world’s first synthetic dye. Hoping to find a synthetic qui-nine that will break the Dutch monopoly in cin-chona bark, Perkin winds up with a disappointing tarry black solution, but when he dips a piece of silk into the solution he finds it is a stable dye, the first ever made from anything but a root, bark, or berry (see Fritzsche, 1841).
1856	ch	*	Dye	K	W. H. Perkin has been working as assistant to German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann, 38, who was brought to London’s Royal College of Medicine by the queen’s consort Prince Albert. Von Hofmann will persuade young Perkin to develop a German aniline dye industry; synthetic organic dyes will wreck the market for indigo and for the madder roots used to produce the dye alizarine (see 1857).
1857	ch	*	Dye	K	The aniline dye industry begins in England as W. H. Perkin and his father build a mauve dye works near Harrow (see
1863	ch	*	Gas	K	The Solvay process employed in a new plant at Couillet, near Charleroi, is cheaper and more effective than the 1791 Leblanc process for obtaining soda (sodium carbonate) from salt (sodium chloride). Belgian industrial chemist Ernest Solvay, 25, and his brother Alfred dissolved salt in water 2 years ago, saturated it with ammonia, and allowed it to trickle down a tower full of perforated partitions. Carbon dioxide produced by heating limestone to quicklime is blown into the bottom of the tower to produce sodium bicarbonate which is heated to make sodium carbonate, or soda, which will be widely used not only to make glass but also in paper, bleaches, water treatment, and petroleum refining.
1866	ch	we	Dynamite	K	Swedish engineer Alfred Bernhard Nobel, 33, perfects dynamite, harnessing the power of nitroglycerin discovered by Ascanio Sobrero in 1847. Nobel, who has studied mechanical engineering in the United States, mixes nitro with absorbent diatomaceous earth to create a safe blasting powder that will replace black powder (see 1875; 1901).
1870	ch	dp	Med	S	DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is discovered by chemistry student Friederich Miescher at Tübingen but is not yet suspected of being the basic genetic material involved in conveying heritable characteristics (see Levene, 1909; Watson, Crick, 1953).
1872	ch	*	Plastics	K	Commercial production of celluloid begins under a patent obtained in 1869 by Albany, N.Y., printer John Wesley Hyatt, 35, and Rockford, Ill., inventor Isaiah Smith Hyatt (see Parkes, 1855). The Hyatts have organized a manufacturing company, deriving the word “celluloid” from cellulose and “oid” (meaning like), they will obtain a trademark for the word next year and sell their celluloid as a substitute for ivory, horn, amber, tortoise-shell, and the like for use in billiard balls, piano keys, men’s collars, buttons, dental plates, combs, and other items (see Eastman, 1889).
1872	ch	*	Goodrich	K	B.F. Goodrich is founded at Akron, Ohio, by rubber maker Benjamin Franklin Goodrich, 30, with backing from local merchants. His first product is firehose to replace leather hose that cracks when frozen (see tires, 1899).
1872	ch	*	Borax	K	Borax ore (calcium borate) deposits discovered near Columbus, Nev., will be called colemanite after prospector William Tell Coleman, 48, who makes the find with Francis Marion Smith, 26. They will organize Pacific Coast Borax Co. and gain virtually a world monopoly in the material used to tan leather and make glass, porcelain, enamel, and soap. Smith will acquire additional deposits in California’s Death Valley and haul out ore in huge wagons that will inspire the trademark “Twenty-Mule Team Borax.”
1889	ch	*	Dow	K	Canadian-American chemist Herbert Henry Dow, 23, discovers a cheap new process for producing the bromine used by the pharmaceutical and photographic industries. Dow finds that by adding certain chemicals to cold brine and passing a current of air through the solution and onto scrap iron, a moisture collects on the iron that drips into a container as ferric bromine, a solution containing a high percentage of commercial-grade bromine (see 1891).
1890	ch	*	Union Carbide	U	Ever Ready batteries, the first commercial dry cell batteries, are introduced by National Carbon Co. (see Leclanche, 1867).
1891	ch	*	Dow	K	The first commercial bromine to be produced electrolytically is introduced by Herbert H. Dow’s Midland Chemical Co., which Dow has established at Midland, Mich., with backing from Cleveland sewing machine maker J. H. Osborn (see 1889). Dow’s bromine will find a good market in the pharmaceutical and photographic industries, and Dow begins work that will develop a process for producing chlorine electrolytically (see 1897; ethyl, 1924).
1892	ch	*	Courtaulds	K	A new method for producing viscose rayon patented by English chemists Charles Frederick Cross, 37, and Edward John Bevan is safer than the Chardonnet nitrocellulose process of 1883 and cheaper than the cuprammonium process. Cross and Bevan dissolve cellulose in a mixture of carbon disulfide and sodium xanthate, and they squirt the viscous solution through fine holes to produce spinnable fibers (see Little, 1902; Viscose Co., 1910).
1892	ch	*	Union Carbide	K	Union Carbide has its beginnings at Spray, N.C., where local entrepreneurs Thomas Leopold Willson and James T. Morehead accidentally produce calcium carbide while trying to make aluminum in an electric furnace by fusing lime and coal tar. Molten slag from their operation is dumped into a nearby stream, liberating a gas, and they discover that the gas is acetylene (carbide gas) which can be used in lighting. They will establish the first commercial carbide factory at Spray in 1894 and found National Carbide Sales to market acetylene (soon found to be effective for cutting metal) (see 1911; Claude, ferrochrome, 1897).
1897	ch	*	Dow	E	Dow Chemical Co. is founded by Herbert H. Dow at Midland, Mich. (see 1891; 1922).
1897	ch	we	du Pont	E	E. I. du Pont de Nemours buys the smokeless powder patents and Squankum, N.J., powder plant of engineer-powder maker Hudson Maxim, 44, whose brother Hiram invented the first fully automatic machine gun in 1883 (see Du Pont, 1872; 1899).
1898	ch	*	Courtaulds	K	A pilot plant to produce viscose rayon yarn that can be woven and dyed opens at Kew, Surrey, England (see Cross, Bevan, 1892). English inventor C. H. Stearn patents a viscose  filament produced by treating wood pulp with caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) (see Courtalds, 1905; Little, 1902).
1898	ch	*	Union Carbide	E	Union Carbide is founded by Chicago entrepreneurs to manufacture calcium carbide for producing acetylene gas for streetlights and home lighting, which still depends largely on coal gas and kerosene (see 1892; 1906).
1899	ch	dp	Bayer	Y	Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid), perfected by German researchers Felix Hoffman and Hermann Dreser, will be marketed by prescription under the trade name Bayer Aspirin beginning in 1905 and go on to become the world’s largest selling over-the-counter drug. Hoffman and Dreser have developed the powdered analgesic (painkiller) and fever reducer from coal tar; it is less irritating to gastrointestinal tracts than salicylic acid, the addition of the neutral salt calcium glutamate will make it less irritating still, and as tablets it will be consumed by the billion (see Gerhardt, 1853; Heroin, 1898).
1899	ch	*	du Pont	E	E. I. du Pont de Nemours is incorporated in Delaware (see 1897). Du Pont has been making dynamite since 1880 and now controls 90 percent of U.S. blasting powder production and 95 percent of U.S. gunpowder production (see 1902; Nobel, 1866).
1902	ch	*	Courtaulds	K	Rayon is patented by U.S. chemist A. D. (Arthur Dehon) Little, 39, who has produced the new cellulose fiber with a new process (see Cross, Bevan, 1892; Courtauld, 1905; Viscose Co., 1910; Celanese, 1918; nylon, 1935).
1902	ch	*	du Pont	E	E.I. du Pont’s Eugene du Pont dies January 28 at age 68. His sons Thomas Coleman, 39, Pierre Samuel, 32, Irenee, 26, and Lammot, 22, pay $22 million to acquire the firm founded by their great-grandfather in 1802 (see 1899; 1906).
1905	ch	*	Courtaulds	K	Commercial rayon production begins in July at an English factory, built on the outskirts of Coventry by Samuel Courtauld, 29, who has bought English rights to the Stearn patent of 1898 for £25,000. French and German companies have bought foreign rights and begin production in competition with Courtauld (see Little, 1902; Viscose Co., 1910).
1906	ch	*	du Pont	E	E. I. du Pont de Nemours has bought up or otherwise absorbed the other members of the 34-year-old Gunpowder Trade Association (Powder Trust) and has a near-monopoly in the U.S. powder industry. It produces 100 percent of the privately-made smokeless powder and from 60 to 70 percent of five other kinds of explosives (see 1902; 1912).
1907	ch	*	Union Carbide	K	The first U.S. company to produce oxygen for oxyacetylene torches is founded by a group of manufacturers who make carbon electrodes used to power electric furnaces that produce alloying metals (see Fouce, 1903; Union Carbide, 1911).
1907	ch	*	Cyanamid	K	The American Cyanamid Co. founded July 22 by U.S. entrepreneur Frank Sherman Washburn, 46, builds a plant on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls to produce calcium cyanamid for nitrogen fertilizer using the European Frank-Caro process for fixation of at-mospheric nitrogen. German chemists Adolf Frank, now 73, and Nidodem Caro, now 36, developed the process in the late 1890s, it requires vast amounts of power, Washburn has obtained backing from tobacco magnate James B. Duke, he uses local limestone, and by the end of 1909 Cyanamid will have an annual production capacity of 5,000 tons (see Haber process, 1908).
1908	ch	*	Cyanamid	K	The Haber process for synthesizing ammonia invented by German chemist Fritz Haber, 40, and his colleague W. H. Nernst will free the world from its dependence on Chilean nitrates for making explosives and nitrogen fertilizers. Using far less energy and at much lower cost than the Frank-Caro process used earlier (see American Cyanamid, 1907), the Haber process combines nitrogen and hydrogen directly, using as a catalyst iron (plus some aluminum, potassium, and calcium) and employing high temperatures. Since ammonia is one part nitrogen to three parts hydrogen; it can easily be reduced to nitric acid for munitions or to sulfate of ammonia or sodium nitrate for fertilizers.
1908	ch	*	BASF	K	German industrial chemist Karl Bosch, 34, will adapt the Haber process and Badische-Anilin-und-Soda Fabrik will employ it to produce sulfate of ammonia and sodium nitrate but mostly to make nitric acid (see war, 1914).
1909	ch	*	Plastic	K	Bakelite, developed by Belgian-American chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland, 46, is the world’s first polymer. Baekeland’s synthetic shellac plastic material is made from formaldehyde and phenol, Bakelite products will be used initially for electrical insulation, and the chemist starts a company to market a molding powder used for shaping Bakelite products (see Union Carbide and Carbon, 1939).
1909	ch	*	Bayer	K	Synthetic rubber is produced by German chemist Karl Hoffman of Farbenfabriken Bayer from butadiene, a gas derived from butane (see 1925).
1910	ch	*	Courtaulds	K	American Viscose Co. is founded at Marcus Hook, Pa., by Courtaulds, Ltd. of Britain (see 1905). It will start making rayon from spruce pulp next year, will be the first successful U.S. producer, and will control U.S. rayon production for years, protected by patents and tariff laws (see Little, 1902; Celanese, 1918; Du Pont, 1920).
1912	ch	*	du Pont	E	E. I. du Pont de Nemours divests itself of some explosives factories by court order. Stockholders receive securities in two new companies, Atlas Powder and Hercules Powder, but the courts permit Du Pont to retain its 100 percent monopoly in military powder (see 1906; 1919).
1913	ch	*	BASF	K	A commercial ammonia plant employing the Haber process of 1908 begins production at Ludwigshafen, Germany. The ammonia is used primarily for making explosives.
1916	ch	*	du Pont	T	W. C. Durant regains control of General Motors whose president Charles W. Nash resigns. GM is reorganized as a Delaware corporation.
1917	ch	*	Union Carbide	E	Union Carbide and Carbon is created in November by a merger of Union Carbide, Linde, Prest-O-Lite, and National Carbon, famous for its Eveready flashlights and batteries. The new company finds itself swamped immediately with government orders for activated carbon for gas masks, helium for dirigibles, ferrozirconium for armor-plating, and other war-related products (see Union Carbide, 1911; petrochemicals, 1920; Prestone, 1926).
1918	ch	*	Co.	K	Celanese Corp. of America is founded at Cumberland, Md., by Swiss-American chemist Camille Edward Dreyfus, 40. It will become the largest producer of acetate rayon and a major factor in viscose rayon and other synthetic fibers (see American Viscose, 1910; nylon, 1935).
1919	ch	*	du Pont	E	E. I. du Pont de Nemours has $49 million in wartime profits even after paying out dividends of $141 million to stockholders. The company’s explosives have fired 40 percent of all Allied shells in the war, it has met at least half the domestic U.S. requirements for dynamite and black blasting powder, and it begins to acquire other chemical companies and to enlarge its holdings in General Motors, which it will soon control (see 1912; GM, 1908, 1957; Sloan, 1929).
1920	ch	*	du Pont	K	E. I. du Pont de Nemours acquires U.S. rights to the Chardonnet viscose rayon process of 1883 from the French company Comptoir des Textiles Artificiels and sets up the DuPont Fibersilk Co. at Buffalo, N.Y. (see 1919; cellophane, 1924).
1920	ch	*	Union Carbide	K	Union Carbide and Carbon establishes a chemical company that will pioneer development of petrochemicals. It acquires another company to expand its metallurgical capabilities in the field of corrosion- and heat-resistant metal alloys.
1922	ch	*	Dow	K	Dow Chemical chemists find a way to make phenol production more efficient. The Hale-Britton process developed by William J. Hale (son-in-law of founder Herbert H. Dow) and Edgar C. Britton, 31, will permit cheap production of orthophenylphenol and paraphenylphenol that Dow will market as insecticides, germicides, and fungicides (see 1897, 1924).
1924	ch	*	Co.	U	Germany’s I. G. Farben chemical cartel starts a synthetic gasoline development program. Chief executive Karl Bosch, 50, has been advised by his experts that rising gasoline prices will make gasoline derived from coal competitive with that derived from petroleum. Germany has no domestic sources of petroleum and lacks foreign exchange but does have abundant coal reserves and faces an energy crisis. Bosch is impressed by forecasts that world petroleum reserves will be exhausted within a few decades (see 1916); an industrial chemist who has adapted the Haber process of 1908 to commercial ammonia production, he predicts that synthetic gasoline will soon undersell gasoline produced from petroleum.
1926	ch	*	Goodrich	K	B. F. Goodrich chemist Waldo Lonsbury Semon, 28, pioneers synthetic rubber, using catalysts in an effort to extract the chlorine from the polymer polyvinyl chloride. He polymerizes PVC into a white powder, plasticizes the PVC powder with agents such as tri-creylphosphate, and produces a workable synthetic that can be rolled and treated like rubber. The product is odorless, weatherproof, age- and acid-resistant, and will be introduced commercially in 1933 under the name Koroseal (see Nieuwland, 1925; butadiene, 1939).
1926	ch	*	du Pont	K	An improved waterproof cellophane developed by E. I. du Pont chemists William Hale Church and Karl Edwin Prindle will revolutionize packaging (see Brandenberger, 1912). Du Pont has been making cellophane at Buffalo, N.Y., since early 1924, selling it initially for $2.65 lb.
1926	ch	*	Union Carbide	T	Prestone, introduced by Union Carbide and Carbon, is the first ethylene glycol antifreeze for motor vehicle radiators; it retails at $5 per gallon (see 1920).
1926	ch	*	Krupp	K	B. F. Goodrich chemist Waldo Lonsbury Semon, 28, pioneers synthetic rubber, using catalysts in an effort to extract the chlorine from the polymer polyvinyl chloride. He polymerizes PVC into a white powder, plasticizes the PVC powder with agents such as tri-creylphosphate, and produces a workable synthetic that can be rolled and treated like rubber. The product is odorless, weatherproof, age- and acid-resistant, and will be introduced commercially in 1933 under the name Koroseal (see Nieuwland, 1925; butadiene, 1939).
1927	ch	*	du Pont	T	E. I. du Pont and Pittsburgh Plate Glass create Duplate Corp. to make safety glass using Du Pont pyrolin and Pittsburgh plate (see 1883). PPG will buy out Du Pont’s interest in Duplate in 1930 (see 1929).
1930	ch	*	Auto	K	Plexiglass, invented by McGill University research student William Chalmers, is a thermoplastic polymer of methyl methacrylate that is light in weight and can be bent when heated into any shape desired. It will be marketed in Britain as Perspex.
1931	ch	dp	Co.	Y	Alka-Seltzer, introduced by Miles Laboratories of Elkhart, Ind., is an antacid and analgesic tablet made from sodium bicarbonate, monocalcium phosphate, acetyl-salicylic acid (aspirin), and citric acid that fizzes when dropped in water. It gains quick acceptance for headaches, hangovers, and upset stomachs even though its aspirin content may cause dyspepsia.
1933	ch	*	Dow	K	Dow Chemical starts building a plant at Long Beach, Calif, to produce iodine from oil field brine. Dow will break the British-Chilean nitrate monopoly in iodine and bring the price of iodine down from $4.50 per pound to 81¢.
1935	ch	*	Plastics	K	Polyethylene, developed by the Alkali Division of Britain’s Imperial Chemical Industries, is the first true “plastic” ever made from the polymerization of ethylene. Company chemists 2 years ago found small specks of a white solid material when they opened their retort after an attempt to force a copolymerization between liquid ethylene and an aldehyde, using extremely high temperatures to link small molecules into long chains; their polyethylene will find wide use in packaging (see 1953).
1935	ch	*	du Pont	K	Nylon, developed by E. I. du Pont chemist Wallace Hume Carothers, 39, is a synthetic polymide that will replace silk, rayon, and jute in many applications. Carothers has combined adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine to form long filaments of what he calls “polymer 66.” Drawing the filaments out to a certain length aligns the polymer chains and pulls them to their full extent, making the filaments strong and durable but giving them many of the characteristics found in silk and wool (see 1937).
1935	ch	dp	Med	Y	Sulfa drug chemotherapy introduced by German biochemist Gerhard Domagk, 40, launches a new era in medicine that will revolutionize treatment of infectious diseases including certain forms of pneumonia and reduce the hazards of peritonitis in abdominal surgery. Director since 1927 of I. G. Farbenindustrie at Elberfeld, Domagk and his colleagues have injected 1,000 white mice with fatal doses of streptococci and then treated them with prontosil, an azo dye patented in 1931 by Farbenfabriken Bayer, which has turned out to have antibacterial properties (all the white mice recovered, and the same results have been obtained with rabbits). Prontosil will be developed into sulfanilamide, which will be followed by other sulfonamides (see Ehrlich, 1909; Dubos, 1939; penicillin, 1928, 1940; streptomycin, 1943).
1937	ch	*	du Pont	L	Nylon is patented by E. I. du Pont’s W. H. Carothers, who assigns the patent to Du Pont (see 1935). The first completely man-made fiber will have wide uses not only in clothing but also as a substitute for canvas in sailboat sails, sisal in ships’ hawsers, hog bristles in brushes, etc. (see stockings, 1940; Terylene-Dacron, 1941).
1938	ch	*	du Pont	K	Teflon (Fluon), discovered accidentally by Du Pont chemist Roy Joseph Plunkett, 28, is an excellent elec-trical insulation material, stable over a wide range of temperatures and resistant to most corrosive agents.  Found while working on refrigerants, the polytetra-fluoroethylene plastic will have many industrial uses; it will be marketed under the name Fluon by Britain’s Imperial Chemical Industries (see cooking utensils).
1939	ch	*	du Pont	K	Nylon is introduced commercially by E. I. du Pont (see Carothers, 1937; first nylon stockings, 1940).
1939	ch	*	Union Carbide	K	Union Carbide and Carbon resumes synthetic rubber research, acquiring Bakelite Corp. to pursue studies of butadiene as a source of synthetic rubber (see Bakelite, 1909; Dow, Goodyear, 1940).
1940	ch	*	du Pont	L	The first nylon stockings go on sale in the United States May 15. Competing producers have bought their yarn from E. I. DuPont, whose nylon production will go almost entirely into parachutes beginning next year (see 1937; Britain, 1946).
1940	ch	*	Goodrich	K	B. F. Goodrich exhibits the first commercial synthetic rubber tires. Its Ameripol tires are made of butadiene synthesized from soap, gas, petroleum, and air.
1940	ch	*	Goodyear	K	Goodyear and Dow Chemical form Goodyear Dow Corp. in a joint venture to produce synthetic rubber from styrene and butadiene. The only U.S. producer of synthetic rubber has been Du Pont, which makes 2,468 long tons of neoprene this year employing research done by the late J. A. Nieuwland (see 1925; 1942).
1950	ch	*	du Pont	K	E. I. du Pont introduces Orlon. It began developing the wool-like polymerized acrylonitrile fiber in 1941 under the
1952	ch	dp	Co.	S	A contraceptive tablet developed by Chicago’s G. D. Searle laboratories is made of phosphated hesperiden (see 1960;
1953	ch	*	Plastics	K	A new catalytic process for producing polyethylene plastic invented by German chemist Karl Ziegler uses atmospheric
1953	ch	bt	Med	S	“We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA),” begins a one-page article in the April 25 Nature. U.S. genetic researcher James Dewey Watson, 25, and English geneticist Francis H. C. Crick, 37, of Cambridge University write, “This structure has novel features that are of considerable biological interest” and in the following (May 30) issue they develop some of the implications of their model which has the basic structure of a double helix and shows how the genetic material in animal and human cells can duplicate itself. Watson and Crick show that chromosomes consist of long helical strands of the substance DNA, research studies conducted throughout the world confirm their experiments, and breaking the genetic code that determines the inheritance of all physical characteristics opens new possibilities for preventing inherited disorders (see 1926; Ochos, 1955).
1954	ch	dp	Med	S	An oral contraceptive pill developed by Gregory G. Pincus, Hudson Hoagland, and Min-Cheh Chang at the Worcester
1955	ch	dp	Med	S	Spanish-born New York University biochemist Severo Ochoa, 49, announces the synthesis of ribonucleic acid (RNA), a
1957	ch	dp	Med	S	Gregory Pincus and Boston gynecologist John Rock, 67, begin an intensive trial of birth-control pills to prevent
1957	ch	bt	Med	S	Synthetic DNA, produced by Stanford University biochemist Arthur Kornberg, 39, and his associates, is identical in
1957	ch	*	du Pont	E	E. I. du Pont’s 23 percent ownership of General Motors stock creates conditions that violate the antitrust laws, the
1960	ch	dp	Med	S	The Pill sells at 55¢ each and costs a woman $11 per month. Condoms continue to account for $150 million of the $200
1960	ch	dp	Co.	S	Enovid 10, introduced in August by G. D. Searle, is the first commercially available oral contraceptive. Searle biochemist
1964	ch	*	Union Carbide	L	Dynel is introduced by Union Carbide, whose new synthetic fiber will be used in textiles, fake furs, and hairpieces.
1976	ch	bt	Co.	S	Genentech is founded by University of California, San Francisco, biochemist Herbert W. Boyer, 40, and venture
1978	ch	*	Oxy	W	Love Canal east of Niagara Falls, N.Y., makes headlines in August as scores of residents are evacuated from houses built
1978	ch	bt	Med	Y	The first recombinant DNA product—human insulin—is produced at the City of Hope Medical Center, Duarte,
1981	ch	*	du Pont	U	E. I. Du Pont acquires Conoco (formerly Continental Oil Co.) for $6.8 billion September 1 (see 1929). Conoco directors
1984	ch	*	Union Carbide	W	A Union Carbide pesticide plant operated entirely by Indians at Bhopal, India, leaks the lethal gas methyl isocyanate
1986	ch	dp	Med	S	The steroid abortifacient drug RU486 (mifepristone) developed in 1980 by French endocrinologist Etienne-Emile
1987	ch	dp	Co.	Y	AZT wins FDA approval March 20. Made by Burroughs Wellcome and used for treating AIDS, the drug costs more
1990	ch	dp	Co.	S	The Norplant contraceptive approved by the FDA December 10 is the first really new birth-control measure since the Pill