Nitrogen

The N≡N triple bond costs 945 kJ/mol to break, which is why the atmosphere is four-fifths fertiliser that no crop can touch. Fritz Haber found the catalytic route to ammonia in 1909 and Carl Bosch scaled it to industrial pressure by 1913; the process now fixes on the order of 150 million tonnes of nitrogen a year and, by most estimates, roughly half the nitrogen atoms in your body passed through it. Daniel Rutherford had isolated the gas in 1772 by burning out the oxygen from air and calling what remained noxious air, since mice died in it. Liquid nitrogen boils at 77 K and is cheap enough to pour away, making it the default laboratory coolant, and nitrogen's inertness is why it blankets fuel tanks, food packaging and transformer oil.