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5500 BCE
Early Metallurgy
The earliest recorded metal employed by humans seems to be gold which can be found free or "native". Small amounts of natural gold have been found in Spanish caves used during the late Paleolithic period, c. 40,000 BC. Silver, copper, tin and meteoric iron can also be found native, allowing a limited amount of metalworking in ancient cultures. Egyptian weapons made from meteoric iron in about 3000 BC were highly prized as "Daggers from Heaven" -
420 BCE
Ancient World
Around 420 BC, Empedocles stated that all matter is made up of four elemental substances—earth, fire, air and water. The early theory of atomism can be traced back to ancient Greece and ancient India.[11] Greek atomism dates back to the Greek philosopher Democritus, who declared that matter is composed of indivisible and indestructible atoms around 380 BC -
Dec 24, 1494
Georg Agricola
Practical attempts to improve the refining of ores and their extraction to smelt metals was an important source of information for early chemists in the 16th century, among them Georg Agricola (1494–1555), who published his great work De re metallica in 1556. His work describes the highly developed and complex processes of mining metal ores, metal extraction and metallurgy of the time. -
Robert Boyle
Although his research clearly has its roots in the alchemical tradition, Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of modern chemistry, and one of the pioneers of modern experimental scientific method. -
Medieval alchemy
The elemental system used in Medieval alchemy was developed primarily by the Arabian alchemist Jābir ibn Hayyān and rooted in the classical elements of Greek tradition.[14] His system consisted of the four Aristotelian elements of air, earth, fire, and water in addition to two philosophical elements: sulphur, characterizing the principle of combustibility; "the stone which burns", and mercury, characterizing the principle of metallic properties. -
John Dalton
In 1803, English meteorologist and chemist John Dalton proposed Dalton's law, which describes the relationship between the components in a mixture of gases and the relative pressure each contributes to that of the overall mixture. -
Wöhler and the vitalism debate
In 1825, Friedrich Wöhler and Justus von Liebig performed the first confirmed discovery and explanation of isomers, earlier named by Berzelius. Working with cyanic acid and fulminic acid, they correctly deduced that isomerism was caused by differing arrangements of atoms within a molecular structure. -
Perkin, Crookes, and Nobel
n 1856, Sir William Henry Perkin, age 18, given a challenge by his professor, sought to synthesize quinine, the anti-malaria drug, from coal tar. In one attempt, Perkin oxidized aniline using potassium dichromate, the aniline and yielded a black solid—suggesting a "failed" organic synthesis. Cleaning the flask with alcohol, Perkin noticed purple portions of the solution. Perkin's discovery is the foundation of the dye synthesis industry, -
Molecular biology and biochemistry
By the mid 20th century, in principle, the integration of physics and chemistry was extensive, with chemical properties explained as the result of the electronic structure of the atom; Linus Pauling's book on The Nature of the Chemical Bond used the principles of quantum mechanics to deduce bond angles in ever-more complicated molecules. -
Mendeleev's periodic table
An important breakthrough in making sense of the list of known chemical elements (as well as in understanding the internal structure of atoms) was Dmitri Mendeleev's development of the first modern periodic table, or the periodic classification of the elements.