July 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.

July 1

Franz Joseph Müller von Reichenstein born 1740: discovered tellurium (Te, element 52) [map].

July 2

Harriet Brooks born 1876: radioactivity, particularly radon (element, 86) [map] as an emanation from radium.
Fritz Haber demonstrated nitrogen fixation [map] process (Haber process for synthetic ammonia) to Badische Aniline und Soda-Fabrik (BASF), 1909.

July 3

Antoine-Jerome Balard announced discovery of bromine (Br, element 35) [map] to Académie des Sciences, Paris, 1826.

July 8

Jason Cardelli reported in Science interstellar abundances of the heaviest elements yet detected in interstellar gas (including thallium [map] and lead [map]), 1994.

July 9

Synthesis of diamond by Francis Bundy, H. Tracy Hall, Herbert Strong, & Robert H. Wentoff, Jr., at General Electric Research Laboratories [map] published in 1955.

July 12

William Ramsay and Morris Travers discovered xenon (Xe, element 54) [map].

July 13

Stanislao Cannizzaro born 1826: His outline of a course in chemical philosophy [map] was instrumental in gaining acceptance of Avogadro's hypothesis [map] and putting atomic weights on a common basis; Cannizzaro reaction in organic chemistry. [Link to documents and letters in the Cannizzaro archive (in italiano).]

July 14

André Louis Debierne born 1874: radiochemistry, discovered actinium (Ac, element 89) [map]. (Link to a birthday card to actinium, in French, written, fancifully, from Debierne's perspective.)
Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas born 1800 in Alès, France [map]: organic chemist (isolated anthracene from coal tar); vapor density method (Dumas method) for determination of atomic and molecular weights; theories of organic radicals and of chemical types. Read his Traité de chimie appliquée aux arts
Ei-ichi Negishi born 1935: palladium-catalyzed cross couplings [map] in organic synthesis; Nobel Prize, 2010.
Joseph Priestley's home (including his laboratory) in Birmingham, England, was destroyed by a rioting mob, 1791. Priestley eventually moved to the US [map].

July 15

Albert Ghiorso born 1915: co-discoverer of transuranic elements americium (Am, element 95), curium (Cm, 96), berkelium (Bk, 97), californium (Cf, 98), einsteinium (Es, 99), fermium (Fm, 100), mendelevium (Md, 101), nobelium (No, 102), lawrencium (Lr, 103), rutherfordium (Rf, 104), dubnium (Db, 105; hahnium was proposed name), and seaborgium (Sg, 106) [map].

July 21

Georg Brandt born 1694: discovered cobalt (Co, element 27) [map].

July 27

Friedrich Dorn born 1848: discovered radon (Rn, element 86) [map], an "emanation of radium" in 1900. (Note that Ernest Rutherford discovered an "emanation of thorium" (later recognized as an isotope of radon [map]) in the same year.)

July 31

Primo Levi born 1919: chemically-trained memoirist; Survival in Auschwitz and The Periodic Table; died by suicide (?) in 1987
Friedrich Wöhler born 1800: synthesis of organic compounds from inorganic materials (oxalic acid and urea); isolated aluminum (Al, element 13) and beryllium (Be, 4) [map]; preparation of acetylene (ethyne) from calcium carbide

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