Gun cotton

                       The german chemist Chrstian F. Schonbein was experimenting with a mixture of nitric acid and sulphuric acid in the kitchen of his house in 1845. Fran schonbein strictly forbade such experiments in home, but she was out at than time.Shonbein accidentally spilled some of the acid and in a panic, he seized the first thing at hand, his wife's cotton apron, sopped up the mixture, then hung it over the stove to dry before his wife came home. When the apron dried, it suddenly burned, and so rapidly that it seemed simply to disappear. The astonished Schonbein investigated and found he had formed which is now called "nitro cellulose" or "Gun cotton". This was the beginning of the replacement of gunpowder on the battlefield, when it reigned supreme for 500 years.