Central Events in Chemistry

Murray, C.A. (2003) Human accomplishment the pursuit of excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950. HarperCollins Publishers.

Year	Country	Event
440 BCE	Greece	Democritus and Leucippus hypothesize that matter is composed of atoms.
750	Arab World	Jabir ibn Hayyan prepares acetic acid, the first pure acid.
900	Arab World	First production of concentrated alcohol, by distilling wine.
1300	Germany	False Geber describes the preparation of sulphuric acid.
1597	Germany	Libavius’s Alcheinia is the first chemistry textbook, with detailed descriptions of many chemical methods.
1624	Belgium	Jan van Helmont recognizes that more than one air-like substance exists and coins the term gas to describe any compressible fluid.
1661	England	Robert Boyle’s Skeptical Chymist separates chemistry from medicine and alchemy; defines elements and chemical analysis.
1662	England	Robert Boyle states Boyle’s Law, that the volume occupied by a fixed mass of gas in a container is inversely proportional to the pressure it exerts.
1674	Germany	Hennig Brand discovers phosphorus, a.n. 15, the first element known to have been discovered by a specific person, and the first element not known in any earlier form.
1735	Sweden	Georg Brandt discovers cobalt, a.n. 27, the first discovery of a metal not known to the ancients.
1751	Sweden	Axel Cronstedt discovers nickel, a.n. 28, the first metal since iron found to be subject to magnetic attraction.
1755	Scotland	Joseph Black identifies “fixed air” (carbon dioxide), the first application of quantitative analysis to chemical reactions.
1766	England	Henry Cavendish discovers “inflammable air” (hydrogen, a.n. 1).
1772	France	Antoine Lavoisier discovers that air is absorbed during combustion.
1772	France	Antoine Lavoisier discovers that diamond consists of carbon.
1772	Scotland, England, Sweden	Daniel Rutherford, Carl Scheele, Joseph Priestley, and Henry Cavendish independendy discover “mephitic air” (nitrogen, a.n. 7).
1773	England, Sweden	Joseph Priestley and Carl Scheele independently discover “respirable air” (oxygen, a.n. 8).
1774-1925		The discovery of the rest of naturally occurring elements becomes a central quest of chemists for the next century and a half. Most of these discoveries qualify as central events and are included separately in the full inventory, but only the elements of special significance are included here.
1775	France	Antoine Lavoisier accurately describes combustion, discrediting phlogiston theory.
1779	France	Antoine Lavoisier discovers that the gas identified by Joseph Priestley and Carl Scheele is responsible for combustion. He names it oxygen.
1784	England	Henry Cavendish discovers the chemical composition of water.
1785	France	Claude Berthollet determines the composition of ammonia.
1789	France	Antoine Lavoisier’s Traite Elementaire de Chemie, a founding document in quantitative chemistry, states the law of conservation of matter.
1797	France	Joseph Proust proposes his law of definite proportions, followed by experimental evidence obtained in 1799.
1800	England	William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle discover that an electric current can bring about a chemical reaction (electrolysis), founding electro-chemistry.
1801	France	Rene Hauy’s four-volume Traite de Mineralogic founds crystallography.
1803	England	John Dalton publishes the modern statement of atomic theory and introduces the concept of atomic weight.
1803	France	Claude Berthollet's Essai de Statique Chemique lays the foundation for understanding chemical reactions and is a step toward the law of mass action.
1805	Germany, France	Friedrich Serturner isolates morphine from laudanum, initiating the study of alkaloids.
1806	France	Louis Vauquelin isolates asparagine, first of the amino acids.
1811	Italy	Amadeo Avogadro hypothesizes that all gases at the same volume, pressure, and temperature are made up of the same number of particles.
1813	Sweden	Jons Berzelius develops the foundation of universal chemical notation.
1814	Germany	Joseph von Fraunhofer discovers that the relative positions of spectral lines is constant, forming the basis for modern spectroscopy.
1815	France	Joseph Gay-Lussac identifies the first organic radical (cyanogen, the cyano group).
1817	France	Joseph Caventou and Pierre Pelletier isolate chlorophyll.
1820	Germany	Joseph von Fraunhofer invents the diffraction grating for studying spectra.
1823	England	Michael Faraday produces the first laboratory temperatures below 0° F., enabling liquefaction of gases, a founding event in cryogenics.
1825	England	Michael Faraday discovers and isolates benzene.
1828	Germany	Friedrich Wohler prepares the organic compound urea from inorganic compounds, the first synthesis of an organic substance, founding organic chemistry.
1831	Scotland	Thomas Graham discovers Graham’s Law, that the ratio of the speeds at which two different gases diffuse is inverse to the ratio of the square roots of the gas densities, a founding event in physical chemistry.
1836	Germany	Theodore Schwann isolates pepsin, the first animal enzyme.
1836	Sweden	Jons Berzelius discovers a common force among catalytic reactions and introduces the terms catalysis and catalytic force.
1840	Germany	Christian Schonbein discovers ozone.
1846	France	Louis Pasteur discovers crystal asymmetry.
1852	England	Edward Frankland describes the phenomenon that later became known as valence.
1858	Germany	Friedrich Kekule establishes two major facts of organic chemistry: carbon has a valence of four and carbon atoms can chemically combine with one another.
1858	Scotland, Germany	Archibald Couper and Friedrich Kekule develop a system for showing organic molecular structure graphically.
1859	Germany	Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen discover that each element is associated with characteristic spectral fines.
1859	Scotland, Austria	James Maxwell develops the first extensive mathematical kinetic theory of gases, later augmented in collaboration with Ludwig Boltzmann.
1860	Italy	Stanislao Cannizzaro introduces a reliable method of calculating atomic weights, leading to acceptance of Avogadro’s Hypothesis and opening the way to classification of the elements.
1863	England	John Newland’s Law of Octaves stimulates work on the table of elements.
1863	Norway	Cato Guldberg and Peter Waage discover the law of mass action, regarding the relationship of speed, heat, and concentration in chemical reactions.
1865	Germany	Friedrich Kekule discovers the structure of the benzene ring, enabling the solution many problems of molecular structure.
1868	England, France	Pierre Janssen and Joseph Lockyer discover helium, a.n. 2, based on spectral analysis rather than a physical specimen.
1869	Ireland	Thomas Andrews identifies the critical temperature for liquifying gases.
1869	Russia	Dimitri Mendeleyev publishes a periodic table of the elements, including the prediction of undiscovered elements.
1873	Netherlands	Johannes van der Waals provides a molecular explanation for the critical temperature above which gas can exist only as a gas.
1874	Netherlands, France	Jacobus Van’t Hoff and Joseph Le Bel independently discover that the four bonding directions of the carbon atom point to the four vertices of a regular tetrahedron, founding stereochemistry.
1877	France, Switzerland	Louis Cailletet and Raoul Pictet independently liquefy oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, the first liquefaction of gases.
1879	USA, Germany	Ira Remsen and Constantin Fahlberg synthesize saccharin.
1884	Germany	Emil Fischer discovers purines, which turn out to be an important part of nucleic acids, which in turn prove to be the key molecules of living tissues.
1884	Sweden	Svante Arrhenius introduces the theory of ionic dissociation.
1885	Switzerland	Johann Balmer develops a formula for the wavelengths at which hydrogen atoms radiate light.
1886	France	Ferdinand Moissan isolates fluorine, a.n. 9, after 75 years of effort by others.
1895	Scotland, Sweden	William Ramsay and Per Teodor Cleve independently discover helium on earth.
1898	Scotland	James Dewar invents a method of producing liquid hydrogen in quantity.
1901	USA	Jokichi Takamine and John Abel independently isolate adrenaline, the first pure hormone.
1904	England	Frederic Kipping discovers silicones.
1905	Germany	Richard Willstatter discovers the structure of chlorophyll.
1906	Russia	Mikhail Tsvet invents chromatography for studying dyes, eventually applied to complex chemical mixtures generally.
1926	USA	James Sumner prepares the first crystallized enzyme, urease.
1927	England, USA	Clinton Davisson and George Thomson independently create large nickel crystals that exhibit X-ray diffraction, confirming Louis de Broglie s theory of matter waves.
1931	USA	Harold Urey discovers deuterium, heavy hydrogen.
1933	England Switzerland	Walter Haworth and Tadeus Reichstein synthesize vitamin C.
1934	France	Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie develop the first artificial isotope, a radioactive form of phosphorus.
1937	USA, France	Emilio Segre and Carlo Perrier prepare technetium, a.n. 43, the first artificial element.
1938	Switzerland	Albert Hofmann and Arthur Stoll synthesize LSD, later (1943) recognized as a hallucinogen.
1944	England	Archer Martin and Richard Synge invent paper chromatography, a faster form of chromatography that requires only a few drops of the substance being analyzed.
1949	England	Derek Barton describes the conformation of a steroidal molecule having several six-membered carbon rings, changing the way organic chemists view molecules.