Picric Acid – First military high explosive, demonstrated by France in 1885. Notoriously volatile and difficult to handle.

What was the first high explosive?

Nitroglycerine is an explosive liquid which was first made by Ascanio Sobrero in 1846 by treating glycerol with a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acid. Alfred Nobel worked hard to improve nitroglycerine as an explosive that could be used in blasting rock and in mining. ...

Who made the first high explosive?

Alfred Nobel, in full Alfred Bernhard Nobel, (born October 21, 1833, Stockholm, Sweden—died December 10, 1896, San Remo, Italy), Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist who invented dynamite and other more powerful explosives and who also founded the Nobel Prizes.