Mauveine

Mauveine, also called aniline purple or Perkin's mauve, was one of the first synthetic dyes and among the first to be produced on an industrial scale. The eighteen-year-old English chemistry student William Henry Perkin discovered it by accident in 1856 while attempting, at the challenge of his professor August Wilhelm von Hofmann, to synthesize the malaria drug quinine; oxidizing aniline contaminated with toluidine impurities with potassium dichromate produced a black solid instead, and when Perkin cleaned his flask with alcohol he noticed a purple solution left behind. Perkin patented the dye and opened a dyeworks at Greenford in Middlesex the following year, and mauve became a fashion sensation in England between 1859 and 1861, launching the synthetic dye industry that followed.