February in the Periodic Table

A month by month list of birthdays and anniversaries from This Week in the History of Chemistry associated with the periodic table or with elements prepared for the International Year of the Periodic Table (2019). These record contain links to a searchable map, Places of the Periodic Table. Map links include the text "[map];" to see information associated with the location, click on the icon at the center of the map or search for the person or event mentioned here.

February 1

Emilio Segrè born 1905: codiscovered technetium (Tc, element 43) [map] and astatine (At, 85) [map]; spontaneous fission; antiproton; Nobel Prize (Physics), 1959

February 2

Jean Baptiste Boussingault born 1802: agricultural chemistry; isolated and named sorbitol; role of nitrogen [map] in plant nutrition.

February 4

John Jacob Livingood made radium E (²¹⁰Bi) by bombarding common bismuth [map] with deuterons, 1936, the first synthetis of a radioactive substance in the US.

February 6

Clemens Winkler, in the course of analyzing a mineral, discovered element (germanium, Ge, element 32) [map] in 1886, consistent with predictions by J. A. R. Newlands [map] and Dmitri Mendeleev [map].

February 8

Bernard Courtois born in Dijon 1777 [map]: discovered iodine (I, element 53 [map]) from seaweed
Dmitri Mendeleev born 1834 (some sources say Feb. 7) in Tobolsk, Russia [map]: periodic law and periodic table. (Link to Mendeleev's 1869 periodic table or an improved .)

February 9

Californium (Cf, element 98) [map] discovered by (left to right) Kenneth Street, Jr., Stanley G. Thompson, Glenn T. Seaborg, and Albert Ghiorso using ion-exchange chromatography at the Berkeley Radiation Lab (later named Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [map]), 1950.

February 10

Per Teodor Cleve born 1840: discovered holmium and thulium [map]; suggested "didymium" was not elementary; co-discovered terrestrial helium [map]; naphthalene derivatives.

February 14

Lawrencium (Lr, element 103) [map] was produced in 1961 by Torbjorn Sikkeland, Albert Ghiorso, and Almon Larsh and Robert Latimer, at the Berkeley Radiation Lab (later named Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [map]).
Dennis Searle and E. M. Skillings found borax and other soluble salts near San Bernardino, CA [map], 1873.

February 17

Dmitri Mendeleev [map] sketched his first draft periodic table, 1869.

February 18

John Sinfelt born 1931: platinum-iridium [map] catalysts in petroleum refining. Read a book chapter by Sinfelt on materials and catalysis.

February 19

Ferdinand Reich born 1799: codiscovered indium (In, element 49) [map]

February 20

Isaac Adams, Jr. born 1836: pioneer in nickel [map] plating.
Ernest Orlando Lawrence [map] received a US Patent 1,948,384 for the cyclotron, 1934. (Link to a story about the 11-inch cyclotron's travels or to page on the 88-inch cyclotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, or to a cyclotron simulation applet.)

February 21

Humphry Davy reads paper introducing the name chlorine (to replace oxymuriatic acid) and asserting its elementary nature [map], 1811.

February 22

Pierre Jules Cesar Janssen born 1824: astronomical spectroscopy and photography, particularly of the Sun; found a line in the solar spectrum subsequently identified with helium [map].
Fritz Strassmann born 1902: nuclear fission of uranium [map].

February 23

Charles Martin Hall first produced electrolytic aluminum in 1886 here [map] in 1886. (See article on his patents).
Glenn Theodore Seaborg [map] and coworkers chemically identified plutonium (Pu, element 94) at University of California, Berkeley [map], 1941.

February 24

First atom of element 107, eventually named Bohrium (Bh) [map] was observed at GSI Laboratories, Darmstadt, Germany [map] in 1981.
Eugène Melchior Peligot born 1811: isolated uranium metal [map]; identified glucose in diabetics' urine.

February 25

Ruth Erica (Leroi) Benesch born 1925: oxygen-carrying capacity of hemoglobin [map]; role of sulfur in proteins
Ida Eva Noddack born (as Ida Tacke) in Wesel, Germany [map] 1896: co-discoverer of rhenium (Re, element 75) [map] with husband Walter and Otto Berg; suggested (correctly) that nuclear fission rather than transuranic elements explained results reported by Enrico Fermi [map].

February 26

Herbert Henry Dow born 1866: electrolytic production of bromine [map]; founder of Dow Chemical.

February 27

Robert Grubbs born 1942: metathesis reactions and ruthenium catalysts [map]; Nobel Prize, 2005.

February 28

Linus Carl Pauling born 1901: molecular structure, bonding (hybrid orbitals), electronegativity [map], and resonance (The Nature of the Chemical Bond); Nobel Prize, 1954; Nobel Peace Prize, 1962

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