In December 1961, Elias Snitzer published in Physical Review Letters the demonstration of the first neodymium-doped glass laser (Nd:Glass), operated at American Optical Company in Southbridge, Massachusetts. Unlike Maiman's ruby laser (1960), glass as the active medium allowed manufacturing large blocks without crystal-size limitations, opening the path to industrial-scale amplification systems. This is the material origin of the technological chain culminating in the NIF lasers: the same Nd:Glass principle, scaled over decades, forms Lawrence Livermore's 192 amplifiers.