The first recorded use of explosives originates from China, where already in the 10th century explosives were used in fireworks and for signalling. The use of explosives as a tool of war was discovered in the West in the 13th century. Since explosives had a tremendous effect on warfare their usefulness was soon perceived by all Western militaries. In 1846 the Italian chemist Asconio Sobrero discovered nitroglycerin, a new very unstable explosive. This property prompted other inventors to work on the stabilisation of nitroglycerin. The Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel finally succeeded in achieving this, by mixing nitroglycerin with an inert absorbent to facilitate handling and packaging of the material. He called it dynamite.
Since the invention of dynamite people quickly came to realise the huge advantages of explosives for both military and civil applications. The work on improved and more advanced explosive materials – the ultimate example being a nuclear explosive device – has never stopped since then.