"Use of fire in warfare has a long history; similar to napalm is the earlier Greek fire, which was also described as "sticky fire" (πῦρ κολλητικόν) and is believed to have had a petroleum base...
A team of chemists led by Louis Fieser at Harvard University was the first one to develop synthetic napalm, during 1942 for the U.S. Armed Forces...
This new mixture of chemicals was widely used in the Second World War in flame throwers and fire bombs. Napalm bombs burned out 40% of the area of Japanese target cities in the World War."