- MDMA, the chemical that would one day be known as ecstasy, was first synthesized in 1912 by German chemist Anton Köllisch. Although he is best known for synthesizing ecstasy, he was not at all interested in the compound itself. He was trying to synthesize a chemical called methylhydrastinine, and creating MDMA was simply one of the compounds he created along the way. Köllisch's end purpose was not to create a psychoactive drug at all, but rather a compound that would help control bleeding.
- Köllisch died on the battlefields of World War I in 1916, decades before ecstasy gained any serious scientific attention. There was sporadic research done on MDMA over the years, mostly by the German chemical company that Köllisch had worked for, Merck. The United States Army also performed limited tests, starting in 1953, to determine what kind of effects ecstasy and several other drugs would have when injected.
- The first scientific publication on the effects of MDMA was not until 1958, 46 years after the chemical was created and 42 years after its inventor had died. The paper was written by Japanese pharmaceutical researcher Yakugaku Zasshi, who was studying antispasmodic drugs.
- Alexander Shulgin, an American pharmacologist, first discovered ecstasy while working at the University of California, and was one of the driving forces behind its popularization in the 1970s. As a skilled chemist, Shulgin was able to synthesize the drug himself, and distributed it to fellow pharmaceutical researchers. He considered it to have therapeutic properties, and took it for relaxation, referring to it as a "low-calorie martini."
- Ecstasy did not become a popular street drug until the 1980s. During this time, it was often called "Adam," and first became popular in urban dance clubs. It eventually came to be known as ecstasy, due to the euphoria that it produces. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, ecstasy became a mainstay of the rave subculture. Today, it is a wide-spread recreational drug.
- Ecstasy is illegal in most of the world, although there are some exceptions for medical research. The World Health Organization has recommended that it be classified as a Schedule I drug. While MDMA was made illegal in the United Kingdom in 1971, it was legal in the United States until 1985. While some researchers in the United States have recommended that ecstasy be reclassified as a Schedule III drug so that its therapeutic properties can be explored, it remains a Schedule I drug.
