By 1913 BASF, the company Bosch worked for and eventually led, had begun to manufacture ammonia—that nitrogen/hydrogen compound which could then be converted into fertilisers and used to make explosives—in their plant at Oppau.[5] The Haber–Bosch process, as it has become known, is one of the most important scientific and industrial discoveries in history. It has, in the subsequent century, helped us to feed billions of people. One of the greatest triumphs of humankind during the twentieth century was banishing hunger and famine as a widespread issue.
