Timeline of discovery

How humanity found all 118 elements. Want to watch it happen? Play the history on the periodic table.

Antiquity & Middle Ages

Metals and nonmetals known before modern chemistry.

Hennig Brand isolates phosphorus — the first element with a known discoverer.

Pneumatic chemistry reveals gases such as hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen.

Electrolysis and the spectroscope unlock dozens of new elements; Mendeleev publishes his table in 1869.

Radioactivity, cyclotrons and reactors push beyond uranium into synthetic elements.

Superheavy elements 113–118 complete the seventh row of the table.