It all starts with a friendship between two men, plenty of natural curiosity and two kitchen stoves. Businessman Friedrich Bayer and dyer Johann Friedrich Weskott use these to conduct experiments and eventually discover how to make the dye fuchsine. On August 1, 1863, they found the "Friedr. Bayer et. comp." company in Wuppertal-Barmen, a 19th century startup with tremendous potential