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Plastic Turns 100: Bakelite's Birthday

Published July 13, 2007 at 4:00 PM EDT

One hundred years ago today, Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland applied for a U.S. patent on a substance he dubbed Bakelite, the first "true" synthetic plastic.

Michele Norris talks with Dr. Jeffrey Meikle, a historian of American plastic, about who Leo Baekeland was, and how his invention affected the next century's thinking.