The History of Saltpeter — The Desert Salt That Lost to Air

The History of Saltpeter — The Desert Salt That Lost to Air Saltpeter, now in sensitive-teeth toothpaste, gave its name to a war and cost miners their lives before chemists made nitrates from air. How a salt dug from caves, stable floors and the Atacama Desert became worth seizing a city for, and who paid to dig it out. Chinese alchemists noted saltpeter's purple flame, and the Wujing Zongyao recorded the earliest gunpowder formulas. In England, royal saltpetremen dug under stables, dovecotes and churches, while Bihar saltpetre reached Europe as ships' ballast. Enslaved workers leached saltpeter at Mammoth Cave, and the Confederacy asked the ladies of Selma for chamber lye. In Chile came the Saltpeter War, the Nitrate King John Thomas North and the 1907 strike that ended in gunfire at the Santa María School in Iquique. Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch then made ammonia from nitrogen in the air, and BASF turned it into nitrates for German munitions. ⏱ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Chile Seizes Antofagasta, 1879 1:18 Tao Hongjing's Purple Flame 2:38 The Wujing Zongyao Gunpowder Formulas 4:03 England's Royal Saltpetremen 6:06 Bihar Saltpetre as Ship Ballast 7:03 Lavoisier at the Paris Arsenal 9:00 Enslaved Workers at Mammoth Cave 11:19 Selma's Chamber Lye Advertisement 13:23 James Humberstone's Shanks Process 14:27 Arturo Prat and the Saltpeter War 16:37 John Thomas North, Nitrate King 18:06 The 18 Pence Strike in Iquique 20:48 Haber's Reactor and the Saltpeter Promise 23:35 Spee at Coronel and Port Stanley 24:58 Antonio Ramón Ramón Stabs Silva Renard 26:22 The 1921 Oppau Silo Explosion 28:34 Humberstone and Santa Laura Abandoned Subscribe for more hidden histories behind the objects you use every day. #history #documentary #Saltpeter #Gunpowder #WarOfThePacific