People knew legumes enrich soil before they knew bacteria. Chemistry then named the gases; microbiology named the workers.
The 20th century added a factory that now rivals the nodule.
Timeline
Jean-Baptiste Boussingault measures that legumes enrich soil nitrogen.
Living nodules, not just soil magic, explain legume nitrogen.
Chemolithotrophic nitrifiers are isolated as a teaching pair.
Free-living aerobic fixers join the nodule story.
Fritz Haber demonstrates high-pressure catalytic ammonia.
Carl Bosch industrialises the process at Oppau — bread and explosives share a factory.
Anaerobic ammonium oxidation is recognised as a missing shortcut.
Complete ammonia oxidisers collapse the two-step textbook in some lineages.
History is bread, rivers and treatment plants.
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