Review of the American Table of Distances

The earliest accounts of explosives regulations date back to 1719 when Great Britain passed an act that regulated the location of explosive storage. However, explosives regulation, in the form that we know it today, was significantly shaped following a major explosion in 1864 that led to the Explosives Act of 1875 in Great Britain. The Explosives Act of 1875 regulated the manufacturing, storage, sale, transportation, and importation of explosives. This act established specific explosive quantity-distance (QD) regulations for different buildings and groups of people; however, the QD regulations were arbitrary and had no foundation in science.