Of rubber aspecs of the lives of people and makeeffective use of them

Thomas Lobb discovers a rubbery substance called Gutta-percha (Palaquium gutta) in Malaysia; Dr William Montgomerie, a surgeon working in the same region, sends samples back to Britain in 1843. According to a contemporary account by William Dalton, it has "remarkable properties, vast utility, and application to scientific and ornamental purposes" in everything from "boots and shoes" to "prevention of toothache."1876: Intrepid English explorer Sir Henry Wickham (1846–1928) smuggles thousands of seeds from the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis out of Brazil and back to England. The English grow the seeds at Kew Gardens just outside London and export them to various Asian countries, establishing the giant plantations that now supply much of the world's rubber.1877: US rubber manufacturer Chapman Mitchell develops the first commercial process for recycling rubber from scratch.1882: John Boyd Dunlop (1840–1921) invents the pneumatic (air-filled) rubber tire. The development of gasoline-powered cars with rubber tires leads to a huge increase in the need for rubber.1883: US chemist George Oenslager (1873–1956) develops a much faster way of vulcanizing rubber using chemicals called organic (carbon-based) accelerators.
1906–12: Bayer, a German chemical company, develops methyl rubber (a polymer of methylisoprene). It becomes critically important to Germany during World War I when supplies of natural rubber are cut off, but falls out of fashion when better alternatives are eventually developed.1910: English Chemist S.S. Pickles becomes the first person to propose (correctly) that rubber consists of long chains of isoprene. Technically, Hevea has the chemical name cis-1,4-polyisoprene, while Gutta-percha is a variation known as trans-1,4-polyisoprene.1930: German chemical company IG Farben develops a type of general-purpose, synthetic rubber named Buna-S ("bu" from butadiene, "na" from the chemical symbol for sodium, and "S" for styrene). Technically, it's a copolymer of butadiene (75 percent) and styrene (25 percent), which is why it's now more generally known as styrene-butadiene or styrene-butadiene-rubber (SBR); it's also sold under tradenames such as Goodyear's Neolite®. Today, styrene-butadiene remains by far the world's most important synthetic rubber.1930: A team of US chemists at the DuPont company, led by Wallace Carothers (1896–1937), develop a revolutionary synthetic rubber called polychloroprene and sold as neoprene. (Shortly afterward, the same group developed an even more revolutionary material: nylon.)