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See also This Month in the History of the Periodic Table (with links to a searchable online map).

November 2-15

50-year, 100-year, 150-year, etc. anniversaries appear in bold red.
See also Today in Science History by Ian Ellis.

• Karl Benz receives patent (German patent 37435) for first automobile with internal combustion engine, 1886.
• DuPont begins mass-production of the first commercially available synthetic rubber, DuPrene neoprene, in 1931.
• Fritz Hofmann born 1866: synthetic rubber.
• Conrad Willgerodt born 1841: organic chemist interested in conversion of internal ketones to terminal thioamides (Willgerodt reaction)

• American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists founded, 1921.
• Daniel Rutherford born 1749: discovered nitrogen (N, element 7); distinguished between carbon dioxide and nitrogen; invented maximum and minimum thermometer
• Carlton Schwerdt announced crystallization of poliomyelitis virus at University of California, 1955.
• Jokichi Takamine born 1854: biochemist and industrialist, isolated adrenaline (epinephrine).

• Boris Aleksandrovich Arbuzov born 1903: organic chemist; free radicals of triarylmethane derivatives, terpenes, phosphorous-containing heterocycles
• James Douglas born 1837: mining engineer: Hunt-Douglas process for copper extraction; established first commercial electrolytic copper plant.
• Charles Kuen Kao born 1933: fiber optics for communication; Nobel Prize (physics), 2009
• Karl Friedrich Mohr born 1806: analytical chemistry, particularly titrimetric methods; Mohr's salt (ferrous ammonium sulfate, Fe(NH₄)₂(SO₄)₂.
• Charles Lee Reese born 1862: manufacture of dyes and explosives.
• William Hyde Wollaston presented his "synoptic scale of chemical equivalents" to the Royal Society, 1813.
• X-10 fission reactor, the first to produce large amounts of radioisotopes for further research, went critical at Oak Ridge, 1943.

• Neil Kensington Adam born 1891: surface film monolayers; two-dimensional state of matter at water-air interface; view his The physics and chemistry of surfaces.
• William Phillips born 1948: laser cooling of atoms; Nobel Prize (physics), 1997.
• Paul Sabatier born 1854: catalysis in organic chemistry; hydrogenation of oils to solid fats; Nobel Prize, 1912
• Marc Tiffeneau born 1873: organic molecular transpositions (e.g., Tiffeneau-Demjanov rearrangement); pharmacology.

• Isidor (Ian) Morris Heilbron born 1886: synthesis of natural products such as vitamins A and D
• William Albert Noyes born 1857: first chief chemist of U.S. National Bureau of Standards (now National Institute of Standards and Technology); editor of Journal of the American Chemical Society; University of Illinois Noyes Laboratory.

• Marie Curie (née Marja Sklodowska) born 1867: codiscoverer of radium (Ra, element 88) and polonium (Po, 84) with husband Pierre; other fundamental work in radioactivity; Nobel Prize (physics), 1903; Nobel Prize (chemistry), 1911. Curium (Cm, element 96) is named after Marie and Pierre.
• Eric Kandel born 1929: molecular mechanisms of synapse modification, including protein phosphorylation; Nobel Prize (Medicine), 2000.
• Lise Meitner born 1878: nuclear fission; discoverer of protactinium (Pa, element 91). Meitnerium (Mt, element 109) is named after her.
• Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman born 1888: Raman effect (inelastic scattering of light; view brief announcement); Nobel Prize (physics), 1930.

• Lawrence Elgin Glendenin born 1918: codiscoverer of promethium (Pm, element 61)
• Herbert Sander Gutowsky born 1919: rotational and NMR spectroscopy.
• Darleane Christian Hoffman born 1926: production and study of transuranium elements; discovery of ²⁴⁴Pu in nature; Garvan Medal, 1990; Priestley Medal, 2000.
• Jack Kilby born 1923: integrated circuits; Nobel Prize (Physics), 2000.
• Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays, 1895. Read a translation of his first report of X-rays and an account of the discovery of X-rays from Fifty Years of X-Ray Diffraction, edited by P. P. Ewald.
• Johannes Rydberg born 1854: empirical relationship for series of atomic spectral lines later provided clues on atomic structure; Rydberg constant named after him

• Gail Borden born 1801: modern preserved food industry.
• Thomas Drummond heated a ball of lime in front of a reflector, 1825. This first practical use of limelight leads to improvements in theater and lighthouse lighting.
• Researchers at GSI, Darmstadt, Germany, made three atoms of Element 110 (Darmstadtium, Ds), 1994.
• Grace Medes born 1886: metabolism of fatty acids and of sulfur and sulfur-containing amino acids
• Robert Millikan coined the term cosmic rays, 1925, confirming earlier observations of unexplained penetrating radiation.
• Ronald George Wreyford Norrish born 1897: kinetics of extremely fast reactions; Nobel Prize, 1967
• Jack Szostak born 1952: telomerase; Nobel Prize (medicine), 2009.

• Andrés Manuel Del Río born 1764: discovered vanadium (V, element 23), which he called erythronium
• Ernst Otto Fischer born 1918: structure of ferrocene; Nobel Prize, 1973.
• Johnson & Johnson incorporated, 1887.

• Glenn Seaborg announced discovery of americium (Am, element 95) and curium (Cm, 96) on the Quiz Kids radio program, 1945, in response to a question.

• Aleksandr Borodin born 1833: organic chemist; better known today as a composer of operatic (Prince Igor), symphonic, and chamber music
• Jacques Charles born 1746: Charles' law relating temperature and volume of a gas; invented hydrogen balloon.
• John Dalton announced the first example of the law of multiple proportions in 1802 (in a paper on atmospheric gases). (Read Dalton's later words on atomic theory.)
• Antoine Lavoisier described to the French Royal Academy of Sciences in 1783 experiments that show water to be a compound, not an element.
• John William Strutt (Lord Rayleigh) born 1842: codiscoverer of argon (Ar, element 18); Nobel Prize (physics), 1904. (Read an account of the discovery of argon in Rayleigh's own words, and a plea for help along the way.)

• Edward Adelbert Doisy born 1893: research on sex hormones; isolated theelin (estrone) and vitamin K; Nobel Prize (Medicine), 1943

• Leo Baekeland born 1863: invented Bakelite plastic (phenol-formaldehyde resins, US patent 942,699) and Velox paper; president of Electrochemical Society
• Frederick Grant Banting born 1891: extraction of insulin and its role in diabetes; Nobel Prize (medicine), 1923. See Banting, Best, et al. paper on pancreatic extracts and diabetes.
• Harry Barkus Gray born 1935: inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry (electronic structure, spectroscopy, mechanisms)
• Auguste Laurent born 1807: discovered anthracene; obtained phthalic acid from naphthalene; identified carbolic acid with phenol; nucleus theory of organic radicals; constructed a saccharimeter

• Albertus Magnus died 1280 (birth date unknown in 1200): discovered arsenic (As, 33); first to use the term affinity in the chemical sense; better known today as a Catholic saint and scholastic philosopher
• Humphry Davy named chlorine (Cl, element 17) and recognized that it did not contain oxygen, 1810. Chlorine had been called oxymuriatic acid.
• Carl Gassner, Jr. received US patent 373,064 for a dry cell battery, 1887
• Friedrich Wilhelm (William) Herschel born 1738: astronomer; discovered infrared radiation.

Dates are given according to the Gregorian calendar to the extent I could find them. (Note: this applies particularly to 19^th-century Russians.)

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