Aluminium’s invention Wander throughout history, from the discovery of bauxite in 1831, to the birth of aviation or to designers who made aluminium a symbol of the avant-garde. The aluminium cannonball In his novel From the Earth to the Moon, (1865) Jules Verne recounts the development of a canon and a cannonball designed to land on the moon. Ballistics are of course in the heart of the argument, but the question of the material to be used to create the projectile is raised in chapter VII, The Hymn of the Cannonball. Close up on aluminium cans What is 52 times greater than the distance between the Earth and the Moon? The number of aluminium cans manufactured worldwide in one year. If they were put end to end, the distance would be approximately 20 million km (12.5 million miles).Follow us through the aluminium can history.