History of Plastic

Google is amazing. Here's just one website I found about it's history. It doesn't really go into the how plastic is made, but lists the diversity of plastic products. Some trends that I noticed: most of the discoveries were either for the needs of the military or were accidental combinations of chemicals (i.e. there was no purpose in mind and was only assigned a "use" after it was created). This is by the American Plastics Council, so I guess it's a pretty good place to start:

http://www.americanplasticscouncil.org/s_apc/sec.asp?CID=310&DID=920