Who discovered the elements? The discoverers of all 118

This list shows who discovered each of the 118 elements and when, from the ten known since ancient times to the superheavy elements made in modern laboratories. Credit for a discovery is not always simple, so here is how it usually works.

Identifying versus isolating

Many elements were recognized long before anyone held a pure sample. Chemists often detected a new element first as an unfamiliar oxide in a mineral or as new lines in a spectrum, and isolated the element itself years or decades later. Helium was seen in the Sun’s spectrum in 1868 but not collected on Earth until 1895, and fluorine was known to exist long before Henri Moissan isolated it in 1886. Where the two steps were far apart, the notes for each element mention both.

Disputes, teams and confirmation

Some elements were found independently by more than one person, which led to disputes over priority; oxygen, for example, was made by both Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Joseph Priestley at almost the same time. Since the 1940s, new elements have been created by large teams at laboratories such as Berkeley in California, Dubna in Russia, GSI in Darmstadt, Germany, and RIKEN in Japan, so credit goes to groups rather than individuals. Today every claim for a new element is reviewed by a joint working group of IUPAC and IUPAP, the international unions of chemistry and physics, and only after a claim is confirmed are the discoverers invited to propose a name.

Who discovered each element

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			Discovered by
6	Carbon	Ancient	Carbon has been known since ancient times in the form of charcoal and soot. Antoine Lavoisier listed it as a chemical element in 1789, and in 1797 Smithson Tennant showed that diamond is made of pure carbon.
16	Sulfur	Ancient	Sulfur has been known since ancient times, when it was called brimstone; it occurs naturally as yellow crystals near volcanoes and hot springs. Antoine Lavoisier recognized it as a chemical element and included it in his 1789 list of elements.
26	Iron	Ancient	Iron has been known since ancient times; the earliest iron objects, such as beads found in ancient Egyptian graves, were made from iron meteorites. People learned to smelt iron from ore more than 3,000 years ago, ushering in the Iron Age.
29	Copper	Ancient	Copper has been known since ancient times and was one of the first metals people used, because it occurs in nature as nuggets of pure metal. Copper objects about 10,000 years old have been found in the Middle East.
47	Silver	Ancient	Silver has been known since ancient times and has been mined and worked into ornaments, tableware, and coins for thousands of years. Its symbol, Ag, comes from the Latin word argentum.
50	Tin	Ancient	Tin has been known since ancient times and was smelted from its main ore, cassiterite, thousands of years ago. Its symbol, Sn, comes from the Latin word stannum.
51	Antimony	Ancient	Antimony and its compounds have been known since ancient times. Its symbol, Sb, comes from its Latin name, stibium.
79	Gold	Ancient	Gold has been known since ancient times; it is one of the few metals found naturally in pure form, as nuggets and flakes, so it was among the first metals people used. Its symbol, Au, comes from the Latin word aurum.
80	Mercury	Ancient	Mercury has been known since ancient times and was used by ancient Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman cultures, as well as by alchemists. Its symbol, Hg, comes from its Latin name hydrargyrum, from the Greek for 'water-silver'.
82	Lead	Ancient	Lead has been known since prehistoric times, so its discoverer is unknown. It is easy to smelt from its main ore, galena, and people were making lead objects several thousand years ago.
33	Arsenic	1250	Arsenic compounds such as the yellow mineral orpiment were known in ancient times, but the German scholar Albertus Magnus is traditionally credited with first isolating the element around 1250.
15	Phosphorus	1669	German alchemist Hennig Brand discovered phosphorus in Hamburg in 1669 while boiling down large amounts of urine in search of the philosopher's stone. The glowing substance he obtained was white phosphorus.
27	Cobalt	1735	Swedish chemist Georg Brandt identified cobalt in about 1735 while studying why certain ores gave glass a deep blue color. He showed that the color came from a new metal, not from bismuth as was then believed.
78	Platinum	1735	Platinum was used by Indigenous peoples of South America long before Europeans knew of it. Spanish naval officer Antonio de Ulloa encountered it in 1735 during an expedition to South America, and his description, published in 1748, introduced it to European science.
30	Zinc	1746	German chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf is credited with isolating zinc and recognizing it as an element in 1746, by heating the ore calamine with carbon. Metallic zinc had already been produced much earlier in India and China.
28	Nickel	1751	Swedish mineralogist Axel Fredrik Cronstedt discovered nickel in 1751 while trying to extract copper from a reddish ore that miners called kupfernickel, or 'copper demon'. The ore looked like copper ore but yielded no copper, and Cronstedt showed it contained a new metal instead.
83	Bismuth	1753	Bismuth was known in the Middle Ages but was often confused with lead and tin. In 1753 French chemist Claude François Geoffroy showed that it is a distinct element.
12	Magnesium	1755	Scottish chemist Joseph Black recognized magnesium as an element in 1755, after showing that magnesia (magnesium oxide) is different from lime. Humphry Davy first isolated the metal in 1808, using electrolysis.
1	Hydrogen	1766	English scientist Henry Cavendish identified hydrogen as a distinct substance in 1766, producing it by reacting metals with acids and calling it 'inflammable air'. Antoine Lavoisier later named it hydrogen, meaning 'water-former', after showing that it burns to make water.
7	Nitrogen	1772	Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford discovered nitrogen in 1772 in Edinburgh, isolating the part of air that would not support burning or breathing, which he called 'noxious air'. Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Henry Cavendish and Joseph Priestley studied the gas independently at around the same time.
8	Oxygen	1774	Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen in 1774 in England by focusing sunlight on mercury(II) oxide and collecting the gas it released. Carl Wilhelm Scheele had made it independently a little earlier but published later, and Antoine Lavoisier gave oxygen its name.
17	Chlorine	1774	Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele first made chlorine gas in 1774 by reacting hydrochloric acid with the mineral pyrolusite (manganese dioxide), but he thought it was a compound containing oxygen. Humphry Davy showed in 1810 that it is an element and gave it its name.
25	Manganese	1774	Carl Wilhelm Scheele recognized manganese as a new element in 1774, and his colleague Johan Gottlieb Gahn isolated it the same year in Sweden by heating manganese dioxide (pyrolusite) with carbon.
42	Molybdenum	1778	Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele showed in 1778 that the soft mineral molybdenite, until then confused with graphite, contained a new element. Peter Jacob Hjelm first isolated the metal in 1781 by heating its oxide with carbon.
52	Tellurium	1782	Austrian mineralogist Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein discovered tellurium in 1782 in gold ore from Transylvania. German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth confirmed it in 1798 and named it after tellus, the Latin word for Earth.
74	Tungsten	1783	Spanish brothers Juan José and Fausto Elhuyar first isolated tungsten in 1783 in Bergara, Spain, by reducing an acid made from the mineral wolframite with charcoal. Two years earlier, Carl Wilhelm Scheele had shown that the mineral now called scheelite contained a new acid.
40	Zirconium	1789	German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth discovered zirconium in 1789 in Berlin, identifying its oxide in a sample of the gemstone zircon from Sri Lanka. Jöns Jacob Berzelius first isolated the impure metal in 1824.
92	Uranium	1789	German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth discovered uranium in Berlin in 1789 while analyzing the mineral pitchblende, although what he isolated was actually an oxide. French chemist Eugène-Melchior Péligot first isolated the metal itself in 1841.
38	Strontium	1790	In 1790 Adair Crawford and William Cruickshank recognized that a mineral from the lead mines near Strontian, Scotland, contained a new 'earth'. Humphry Davy first isolated the metal by electrolysis in 1808.
22	Titanium	1791	Cornish clergyman and amateur mineralogist William Gregor discovered titanium in 1791 in black sand from a stream in Cornwall, England. German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth found it independently in 1795 in the mineral rutile and named it after the Titans of Greek mythology.
39	Yttrium	1794	Finnish chemist Johan Gadolin discovered yttrium in 1794, identifying a new oxide (later named yttria) in a black mineral from a quarry at Ytterby, near Stockholm. Friedrich Wöhler isolated the impure metal in 1828.
24	Chromium	1797	French chemist Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin discovered chromium in 1797 in crocoite, a bright orange-red mineral from Siberia. He isolated the metal the following year by heating its oxide with charcoal.
4	Beryllium	1798	French chemist Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin discovered beryllium in 1798, as an oxide in the minerals beryl and emerald. The metal itself was first isolated in 1828, independently by Friedrich Wöhler and Antoine Bussy.
23	Vanadium	1801	Andrés Manuel del Río found vanadium in a Mexican lead ore in 1801, but he was persuaded that it was only impure chromium. Nils Gabriel Sefström rediscovered it in Sweden in 1830 and named it after Vanadís, a name of the Norse goddess Freyja.
41	Niobium	1801	English chemist Charles Hatchett discovered niobium in 1801 in a mineral sample sent to England from North America, and he called it columbium. Because it is so similar to tantalum, its identity was disputed for decades, and German chemist Heinrich Rose gave it the name niobium in 1844.
46	Palladium	1802	English chemist William Hyde Wollaston discovered palladium in 1802 while purifying platinum ore from South America. He first offered it for sale anonymously in a London shop, which led some chemists to suspect a hoax before he revealed that he was its discoverer.
73	Tantalum	1802	Swedish chemist Anders Gustaf Ekeberg discovered tantalum in 1802 in Uppsala, in minerals from Sweden and Finland. He named it after Tantalus from Greek mythology, partly because its oxide could not 'drink' acid, just as Tantalus could never drink the water around him.
58	Cerium	1803	Cerium was discovered in 1803 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Wilhelm Hisinger in Sweden, and independently by Martin Heinrich Klaproth in Germany, in the mineral now called cerite. The pure metal was not isolated until 1875.
76	Osmium	1803	English chemist Smithson Tennant discovered osmium in 1803 in London, in the black residue left after dissolving platinum ore in aqua regia; he found iridium in the same residue.
77	Iridium	1803	English chemist Smithson Tennant discovered iridium in 1803 in London, in the insoluble residue left after dissolving platinum ore in aqua regia. He named it after Iris, the Greek goddess of the rainbow, because its salts have so many colors.
45	Rhodium	1804	English chemist William Hyde Wollaston discovered rhodium in London shortly after palladium and announced it in 1804. He found it after dissolving South American platinum ore in aqua regia and removing the platinum and palladium.
11	Sodium	1807	Humphry Davy first isolated sodium in 1807 at the Royal Institution in London, by passing an electric current through molten sodium hydroxide (caustic soda). He had isolated potassium the same way just days earlier.
19	Potassium	1807	Humphry Davy isolated potassium in 1807 at the Royal Institution in London, by passing an electric current through molten potash (potassium hydroxide). It was the first metal ever isolated by electrolysis.
5	Boron	1808	Boron was first isolated, in impure form, in 1808 by the French chemists Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis Jacques Thénard and, independently, by Humphry Davy in London, all working from boric acid. Very pure boron was not produced until the early 20th century.
20	Calcium	1808	Humphry Davy isolated calcium in 1808 in London, by electrolysis of a mixture of lime and mercury(II) oxide. Lime itself, a calcium compound, had been used in building since ancient times.
56	Barium	1808	English chemist Humphry Davy first isolated barium metal in 1808 in London by electrolysis of barium compounds. Carl Wilhelm Scheele had already recognized its oxide, baryta, as a new substance in 1774.
53	Iodine	1811	French chemist Bernard Courtois discovered iodine in 1811 while extracting chemicals from seaweed ash to make saltpeter, when adding sulfuric acid released a violet vapor. Its name comes from the Greek iodes, meaning 'violet'.
3	Lithium	1817	Johan August Arfwedson discovered lithium in 1817 while analyzing the mineral petalite in Jöns Jacob Berzelius's laboratory in Stockholm. The metal itself was first isolated in 1821 by William Thomas Brande, using electrolysis.
34	Selenium	1817	Swedish chemists Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Johan Gottlieb Gahn discovered selenium in 1817 in a reddish sludge from a sulfuric acid works at Gripsholm, Sweden. Berzelius at first mistook it for tellurium.
48	Cadmium	1817	German chemist Friedrich Stromeyer discovered cadmium in 1817 in Göttingen, while investigating a sample of zinc carbonate that turned yellow when heated even though it contained no iron. He named it after cadmia, the Latin name for the zinc ore calamine.
14	Silicon	1823	Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius is credited with isolating silicon in 1823 in Stockholm, by heating potassium fluorosilicate with potassium metal.
13	Aluminum	1825	Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted produced the first impure aluminum in 1825 in Copenhagen, by reacting aluminum chloride with potassium amalgam. Friedrich Wöhler improved the method in 1827 and made purer metal.
35	Bromine	1826	French chemist Antoine-Jérôme Balard discovered bromine in 1826 while studying seaweed ash and brine from the salt marshes of Montpellier. In Germany, Carl Löwig had isolated it independently slightly earlier but published his results later.
90	Thorium	1829	Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius identified thorium in 1829 in a black mineral from a Norwegian island, now called thorite. He named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder.
57	Lanthanum	1839	Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander discovered lanthanum in 1839 in Stockholm, when he found a new oxide hidden in a sample of cerium nitrate. He named it from the Greek lanthanein, meaning 'to lie hidden'.
65	Terbium	1843	Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander discovered terbium in 1843 in Stockholm, when he separated yttria, an oxide from the mineral gadolinite, into three fractions.
68	Erbium	1843	Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander discovered erbium in 1843 in Stockholm while separating yttria, an oxide from the mineral gadolinite, into fractions. It is named after Ytterby, the Swedish village where gadolinite was found.
44	Ruthenium	1844	Russian chemist Karl Ernst Claus discovered ruthenium in 1844 at Kazan University, while studying the residues left over after platinum had been extracted from ore from the Ural Mountains.
55	Cesium	1860	Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff discovered cesium in 1860 in Heidelberg, Germany, by spotting two bright blue lines in the spectrum of mineral water, making it the first element found with a spectroscope. Its name comes from the Latin caesius, meaning 'sky blue'.
37	Rubidium	1861	German scientists Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff discovered rubidium in 1861 in Heidelberg, using their newly invented spectroscope to examine the mineral lepidolite. They named it after the Latin rubidus, meaning 'deep red', for the color of its brightest spectral lines.
81	Thallium	1861	William Crookes discovered thallium in England in 1861 when he saw a bright green line in the spectrum of residues from a sulfuric acid plant. Its name comes from the Greek thallos, meaning 'green shoot'.
49	Indium	1863	German chemists Ferdinand Reich and Theodor Richter discovered indium in 1863 at the Freiberg Mining Academy while searching for thallium in zinc ore with a spectroscope. They named it after the bright indigo-blue line they saw in its spectrum.
2	Helium	1868	Helium was discovered in 1868, when astronomers Pierre Janssen and Norman Lockyer observed an unexplained yellow line in the Sun's spectrum and Lockyer proposed that it came from a new element. William Ramsay first isolated helium on Earth in 1895, from a uranium mineral called cleveite.
31	Gallium	1875	French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered gallium in 1875 by spectroscopy, spotting two new violet lines in a sample of zinc ore. He isolated the metal by electrolysis later that year and named it after Gallia, the Latin name for France.
67	Holmium	1878	Swiss chemists Marc Delafontaine and Jacques-Louis Soret detected holmium spectroscopically in Geneva in 1878, and Swedish chemist Per Teodor Cleve independently separated it from erbium oxide in 1879. Cleve named it after Holmia, the Latin name for Stockholm.
70	Ytterbium	1878	Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac discovered ytterbium in 1878 in Geneva, after separating it from erbium oxide, and named it after the Swedish village of Ytterby. In 1907 his ytterbium was shown to contain another element, lutetium.
21	Scandium	1879	Swedish chemist Lars Fredrik Nilson discovered scandium in 1879 at Uppsala, finding it in the rare minerals euxenite and gadolinite, and named it after Scandinavia. The pure metal was not produced until 1937.
62	Samarium	1879	French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered samarium in Paris in 1879 by spectroscopy of an extract from the mineral samarskite. Samarskite was named after Russian mining official Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets, making samarium the first element named, indirectly, after a person.
69	Thulium	1879	Swedish chemist Per Teodor Cleve discovered thulium in 1879 in Uppsala, by separating it from impure erbium oxide.
64	Gadolinium	1880	Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac detected gadolinium in 1880 in Geneva, and Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran isolated a purer form of its oxide in 1886. It is named after the mineral gadolinite, which honors the Finnish chemist Johan Gadolin.
59	Praseodymium	1885	Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach discovered praseodymium in 1885 in Vienna, when he split a substance called didymium, long thought to be a single element, into two: praseodymium and neodymium.
60	Neodymium	1885	Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach discovered neodymium in Vienna in 1885, when he separated didymium into two elements. Its name means 'new twin'.
9	Fluorine	1886	French chemist Henri Moissan first isolated fluorine in 1886 in Paris, by electrolysis of potassium hydrogen fluoride dissolved in liquid hydrogen fluoride. The achievement helped earn him the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
32	Germanium	1886	German chemist Clemens Winkler discovered germanium in 1886 in Freiberg, Saxony, while analyzing a newly found silver mineral called argyrodite. He named it after his home country, Germany.
66	Dysprosium	1886	French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered dysprosium in Paris in 1886, after painstakingly separating its oxide from holmium oxide.
18	Argon	1894	Lord Rayleigh and William Ramsay discovered argon in 1894 in London, after noticing that nitrogen taken from air was slightly denser than nitrogen made from chemical compounds. They removed the nitrogen and oxygen from a sample of air and found an unreactive gas left behind.
10	Neon	1898	William Ramsay and Morris Travers discovered neon in 1898 at University College London, by slowly evaporating liquefied air and studying the gases that boiled off. Its name comes from the Greek neos, meaning 'new'.
36	Krypton	1898	William Ramsay and Morris Travers discovered krypton in 1898 at University College London, by evaporating liquefied air and examining the small residue left behind. They named it after the Greek kryptos, meaning 'hidden'.
54	Xenon	1898	Scottish chemist William Ramsay and English chemist Morris Travers discovered xenon in London in 1898, in the residue left after liquefied air was evaporated. Its name comes from the Greek xenos, meaning 'stranger'.
84	Polonium	1898	Marie and Pierre Curie discovered polonium in Paris in 1898 while studying the uranium ore pitchblende. Marie Curie named it after her homeland, Poland.
88	Radium	1898	Marie and Pierre Curie, working with Gustave Bémont, announced the discovery of radium in Paris in 1898 after finding a new radioactive substance in pitchblende ore. The name comes from the Latin radius, meaning 'ray'.
86	Radon	1899	In 1899 Ernest Rutherford and Robert Owens at McGill University in Montreal noticed a radioactive gas given off by thorium compounds, and in 1900 Friedrich Ernst Dorn in Germany found a similar gas released by radium. The name radon comes from radium.
89	Actinium	1899	French chemist André-Louis Debierne discovered actinium in Paris in 1899 in pitchblende residues left after the Curies extracted radium, and Friedrich Oskar Giesel found it independently in 1902. Its name comes from the Greek aktis, meaning 'ray' or 'beam'.
63	Europium	1901	French chemist Eugène-Anatole Demarçay discovered europium in 1901 in Paris, after separating it from samples of samarium that he suspected contained an unknown element.
71	Lutetium	1907	French chemist Georges Urbain discovered lutetium in Paris in 1907 by showing that ytterbium was a mixture of two elements; Carl Auer von Welsbach and Charles James separated it independently at about the same time. Urbain named it after Lutetia, the Roman name for Paris.
91	Protactinium	1913	Kasimir Fajans and Oswald Göhring identified a short-lived isotope of protactinium in Germany in 1913 and called it brevium; in 1917 and 1918 Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner in Berlin, and independently Frederick Soddy and John Cranston in Britain, found the longer-lived protactinium-231. The name means 'before actinium', because it decays into actinium.
72	Hafnium	1923	Dutch physicist Dirk Coster and Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy discovered hafnium in 1923 in Copenhagen, using X-ray spectroscopy to find it in zirconium ore. It is named after Hafnia, the Latin name for Copenhagen.
75	Rhenium	1925	German chemists Walter Noddack, Ida Tacke (later Ida Noddack), and Otto Berg discovered rhenium in 1925, detecting it with X-ray spectroscopy in platinum ore and the mineral columbite. They named it after the Rhine River, Rhenus in Latin.
43	Technetium	1937	Italian scientists Emilio Segrè and Carlo Perrier identified technetium in 1937 at the University of Palermo, in a piece of molybdenum that had been bombarded with deuterons in Ernest Lawrence's cyclotron in Berkeley, California. It was the first element produced artificially, which is why its name comes from the Greek technetos, meaning 'artificial'.
87	Francium	1939	Marguerite Perey discovered francium in 1939 at the Curie Institute in Paris while purifying samples of actinium. She named it after her home country, France.
85	Astatine	1940	Dale Corson, Kenneth MacKenzie and Emilio Segrè first made astatine in 1940 at the University of California, Berkeley, by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles. Its name comes from the Greek astatos, meaning 'unstable'.
93	Neptunium	1940	Edwin McMillan and Philip Abelson made neptunium in 1940 at the University of California, Berkeley, by bombarding uranium with neutrons. It was named after the planet Neptune, the next planet beyond Uranus.
94	Plutonium	1940	Glenn Seaborg, Edwin McMillan, Joseph Kennedy and Arthur Wahl first made plutonium in late 1940 at the University of California, Berkeley, by bombarding uranium with deuterons. It was named after Pluto, then considered the next planet after Neptune.
95	Americium	1944	Glenn Seaborg, Ralph James, Leon Morgan and Albert Ghiorso first made americium in 1944 at the wartime Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago. It was named after the Americas, just as europium, the element above it, is named after Europe.
96	Curium	1944	Glenn Seaborg, Ralph James and Albert Ghiorso first made curium in 1944 by bombarding plutonium with alpha particles in a cyclotron at Berkeley, and identified it at the University of Chicago. It was named after Marie and Pierre Curie.
61	Promethium	1945	Jacob Marinsky, Lawrence Glendenin, and Charles Coryell identified promethium in 1945 at Clinton Laboratories (now Oak Ridge National Laboratory) in Tennessee, by separating it from the fission products of uranium. It was named after Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire from the gods.
97	Berkelium	1949	Stanley Thompson, Albert Ghiorso and Glenn Seaborg first made berkelium in December 1949 at the University of California, Berkeley, by bombarding americium with alpha particles. It was named after the city of Berkeley, just as terbium, the element above it, is named after the Swedish village of Ytterby.
98	Californium	1950	Stanley Thompson, Kenneth Street Jr., Albert Ghiorso and Glenn Seaborg first made californium in 1950 at the University of California, Berkeley, by bombarding curium with alpha particles. It is named after the state of California and its university.
99	Einsteinium	1952	A team led by Albert Ghiorso at Berkeley, working with Argonne and Los Alamos scientists, identified einsteinium in 1952 in the debris of 'Ivy Mike', the first full-scale hydrogen bomb test, in the Pacific. It was named after Albert Einstein.
100	Fermium	1952	Albert Ghiorso's team at Berkeley, working with Argonne and Los Alamos scientists, found fermium in 1952 in the debris of the 'Ivy Mike' hydrogen bomb test. It was named after Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi.
101	Mendelevium	1955	Albert Ghiorso, Bernard Harvey, Gregory Choppin, Stanley Thompson and Glenn Seaborg first made mendelevium in 1955 at Berkeley by bombarding einsteinium with alpha particles. It was named after Dmitri Mendeleev, creator of the periodic table.
102	Nobelium	1958	A team working at the Nobel Institute of Physics in Stockholm claimed nobelium in 1957 but could not be confirmed; Albert Ghiorso's team at Berkeley reported it in 1958, and work at Dubna in the Soviet Union in the 1960s firmly established its properties. The name honors Alfred Nobel.
103	Lawrencium	1961	Albert Ghiorso, Torbjørn Sikkeland, Almon Larsh and Robert Latimer first reported lawrencium in 1961 at Berkeley by bombarding californium with boron ions, and work at Dubna in the following years helped confirm it. It was named after Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron.
104	Rutherfordium	1964	A team led by Georgy Flerov at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Soviet Union, first claimed rutherfordium in 1964, and Albert Ghiorso's group at Berkeley reported it in 1969; credit is shared. It is named after Ernest Rutherford, who pioneered the study of the atomic nucleus.
105	Dubnium	1967	Georgy Flerov's team at Dubna in the Soviet Union first reported signs of dubnium in 1967 by bombarding americium with neon, and Albert Ghiorso's team at Berkeley reported it in 1970; credit is shared. It is named after Dubna, the Russian town that hosts the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.
106	Seaborgium	1974	A team led by Albert Ghiorso and Kenneth Hulet at Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory made seaborgium in 1974 by bombarding californium with oxygen ions. It was named after chemist Glenn Seaborg.
107	Bohrium	1981	A team led by Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg at GSI in Darmstadt, Germany, first convincingly made bohrium in 1981 by bombarding bismuth with chromium ions. It is named after Danish physicist Niels Bohr.
109	Meitnerium	1982	Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg's team at GSI in Darmstadt, Germany, made meitnerium in 1982 by bombarding bismuth with iron ions. It is named after Austrian-Swedish physicist Lise Meitner, a co-discoverer of nuclear fission.
108	Hassium	1984	Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg's team at GSI in Darmstadt, Germany, made hassium in 1984 by bombarding lead with iron ions. It is named after the German state of Hesse, whose Latin name is Hassia.
110	Darmstadtium	1994	A team led by Sigurd Hofmann at GSI in Darmstadt, Germany, first made darmstadtium in 1994 by bombarding lead with nickel ions. It is named after the city of Darmstadt, home of GSI.
111	Roentgenium	1994	Sigurd Hofmann's team at GSI in Darmstadt, Germany, first made roentgenium in 1994 by bombarding bismuth with nickel ions. It is named after Wilhelm Röntgen, who discovered X-rays.
112	Copernicium	1996	Sigurd Hofmann's team at GSI in Darmstadt, Germany, first made copernicium in 1996 by fusing lead and zinc nuclei. It is named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.
114	Flerovium	1999	A team led by Yuri Oganessian at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, working with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, first reported flerovium in 1999 after bombarding plutonium with calcium ions. It is named after the institute's Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, which honors physicist Georgy Flerov.
116	Livermorium	2000	Scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, working with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, first made livermorium in 2000 by bombarding curium with calcium ions. It is named after Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.
118	Oganesson	2002	A team of Russian and American scientists led by Yuri Oganessian at Dubna, working with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, first observed oganesson in 2002 by bombarding californium with calcium ions and announced it in 2006. It is named after Yuri Oganessian, a pioneer of superheavy element research.
115	Moscovium	2003	A team led by Yuri Oganessian at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, working with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, first made moscovium in 2003 by bombarding americium with calcium ions. It is named after the Moscow region, where Dubna is located.
113	Nihonium	2004	A team led by Kosuke Morita at RIKEN in Japan made nihonium in 2004 by bombarding bismuth with zinc ions, and it was credited with the discovery in 2015. Its name comes from Nihon, one of the Japanese names for Japan.
117	Tennessine	2010	A Russian-American team led by Yuri Oganessian at Dubna first made tennessine in 2010 by bombarding a berkelium target, produced at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with calcium ions. It is named after the US state of Tennessee, home of Oak Ridge, Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee.