All Things Bakelite: The Age of Plastic, 

a film by John Maher, is a virtual periodic table of elements that combine to create a joyous and provocative story about the “father of modern plastics”. In 1907, Leo Hendrik Baekeland, a Belgian-born American chemist, made one of the most transformative discoveries of the 20th century: Bakelite.

The British Plastics Federation Plastics Timeline;

An Industry 800 years in the making.

A brief history of plastic. 

a simplified animation of the history of plastic

The Bakelite Breakthrough: How plastics came of age

Chemical Heritage Foundation