History of the Periodic Table

The Periodic Table of Elements is a chart created by Dmitri

Mendeleev in 1869 to help organize the elements that had been
discovered at that time.

First we have to understand what an element is. All matter is made

up of elements, which are substances with only one type of atom.
They have the same number of neutrons, protons, and electrons. If
you alter the number of the neutrons, protons, or electrons for any
element an isotope is created. There are 92 elements that occur
naturally and are found in nature. Hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen,
and oxygen are found in most living organisms.

It is a substance that has only one type of atom. They have the same
number of neutrons, protons and electrons. When you change the
number of the neutrons, protons or electrons for any element you
have created an isotope of that element.

Elements have been known to man since the ancient times. Sulfur is
referred to in the Bible as brimstone and there are other references
to other elements dating back to early times. To understand more
about how the periodic table came into existence, there are some
important dates to look at:

 1669 - Hennig Brand invented the Philosopher's Stone, which

could turn metals into pure gold. He also
discovered phosphorus.
 1680 - Robert Boyle also discovered phosphorus without
knowing about Hennig Brand's discovery.
 By 1809 about 47 elements had been discovered and named.
Scientists began to see patterns in their atom structures.
 1863 - John Newlands organized the 56 then known elements
into eleven separate groups based upon their atom structure.
 1869 - Dimitri Mendellev used John Newlands' grouping and
organized the elements into what is now known as the periodic
table. He used the atomic mass as the primary characteristic to
 decide where each element belonged in his table. The
elements were arranged in rows and columns. He even left
spaces for elements to be discovered because of the pattern he
saw once he started organizing those elements known at that
that time. His table looked like this:

Picture courtesy of
Answers.com

 1886 - Antoine Becquerel discovered radioactivity.

 1886 - Ernest Rutherford named three types of
radiation: alpha and beta and gamma rays.
 1886 - Pierre and Marie Curie began their work and
discovered radium and polonium. They also discovered that
beta particles were negatively charged.
 1894 - Sir William Ramsay and Lord Rayleigh discovered
the noble gases and they were added to the periodic table as
group O.
 1897 - J. J. Thomson discovered electrons which were small
negatively charged particles.
 1897 - John Sealy Townsend and Robert A. Millikan further
investigated electrons and were able to determine their exact
charge and mass.
 1900 - Antoine Becquerel discovered that electrons and beta
particles were the same thing.
 1903 - Ernest Rutherford decided that radioactivity is what
 caused atoms to be broken down.
 1911 - Ernest Rutherford and Hans Geiger discovered that
electrons moved around the nucleus of the cell's atom much
like planets orbit the sun.
 1913 - Niels Bohr discovered the electrons' orbits and that
there were more electrons in the outer orbits than in the inner
orbits. He also saw that radiation was emitted when an
electron would jump from one orbit to another.
 1914 - Ernest Rutherford discovered protons in the nucleus.
 1914 - Henry Moseley labeled the elements with atomic
numbers based upon the number of electrons in an atom rather
than on their atomic mass.
 1932 - James Chadwick discovered neutrons and identified
isotopes.
 1932 - J. D. Cockroft and Ernest T. S. Walton worked together
in splitting the atom when working with lithium which they
bombarded with protons. The lithium nucleus was divided into
two helium nuclei.
 1932 - Ernest O. Lawrence, Milton Stanley Livingston and
Milton White worked on the first cyclotron at the University of
California in Berkeley. A cyclotron is in the picture below.

Picture courtesy of
The Manhattan Project

 1945 - Glenn Seaborg identified lanthanides and actinides

 which are elements with atomic numbers higher than 92 and
are placed in a separate section on the bottom in today's
Periodic Table.
 As of October 16, 2006 there are 117 different elements. The
most recent elements discovered are meitnerium,
darmstadtium, and ununquadium.

For more information on the discovery of the elements, go to The

Manhattan Project and Development of the Periodic Table.

Elements by Elements by Elements by Energy

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