This Week in the History of Chemistry		January	February	March	April
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See also This Month in the History of the Periodic Table (with links to a searchable online map).

December 1-14

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

• Victor Ambros born 1953: microRNA; Nobel Prize (medicine), 2024
• John Clauser born 1942: quantum entanglement; Nobel Prize (physics), 2022
• The Drunkometer, first practical breath test for alcohol, was patented in 1936 by Rolla Neil Harger (US patent 2,062,785).
• Martin Heinrich Klaproth born 1743: discovered uranium (actually uranium dioxide) (U, element 92) from pitchblende; discovered zirconium (Zr, 40); codiscovered cerium (Ce, 58); rediscovered chromium (Cr, 24).
• Martin Rodbell born 1925: G-proteins and their role in signaling in cells; Nobel prize (medicine), 1994

• In Bhopal, India, at a Union Carbide India facility, a disastrous release of methyl isocyanate that would claim over 4000 lives began, 1984. [Note: I have found it difficult to find objective facts and analysis on this disaster, so I offer sites that carry perspectives of the company and of outraged protesters, as well as a review published in Environmental Health. Union Carbide has since merged with Dow Chemical. --CJG]
• Paul (Ching-Wu) Chu born 1941: high-temperature superconducting materials.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opened under the directorship of William Ruckelshaus, 1970.
• Isabella Karle born (as Isabella Lugoski) 1921: three-dimensional structure of molecules via diffraction of X-rays and electrons; plutonium chemistry in the Manhattan Project; see oral history interviews (2005 and 2015).
• First artificially initiated self-sustained nuclear fission reaction (Chicago pile one) under Stagg Field, University of Chicago, 1942.
• Nikolai Matveevich Kizhner born 1867: Wolff-Kizhner (also known as Wolff-Kishner) reduction of aldehydes and ketones. Links to information on Kizhner's early and later career.
• Ludwig Knorr born 1859: synthesis of heterocyclic compounds.
• First large-scale commercial nuclear power plant began operation at Shippingport, PA, in 1957.

• Paul Josef Crutzen born 1933: meteorology and atmospheric chemistry including ozone chemistry; coined the term anthropocene; Nobel Prize, 1995. Link to his 1970 paper on nitrogen oxides and ozone.
• Carl Koller born 1857: biological effects of cocaine; pioneer in local anaesthesia (with cocaine).
• Richard Kuhn born 1900: structure and synthesis of vitamins and carotenoids; refused Nobel Prize in 1938 on instructions of Nazi government, but received it in 1949.
• Ellen Swallow Richards born 1842: analytical chemistry; analysis of samarskite reported unidentified residues; water quality; founder of the home economics movement
• Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn born 1886: X-ray spectroscopy; father of 1981 Nobel laureate electron spectroscopist Kai Siegbahn; Nobel Prize (physics), 1924.

• First published use of the term isotope (meaning "same place") for elements which share the same place in the periodic table, by Frederick Soddy with advice from Margaret Todd 1913.
• Alfred Day Hershey born 1908: microbial genetics; Nobel Prize (medicine), 1969.
• Charles Holmes Herty born 1867: chemistry of natural resources; paper chemistry.

• Carl Ferdinand Cori born 1896: carbohydrate metabolism; discovered how glycogen is catalytically converted; Nobel Prize (medicine), 1947 (with wife Gerty)
• Werner Heisenberg born 1901: quantum mechanics (matrix mechanics); Heisenberg uncertainty principle; Nobel Prize (physics), 1932. See page images of uncertainty principle paper (auf Deutsch).
• Hans Landolt born 1831: Landolt-Börnstein physical chemical tables; see page images of the 1905 edition (auf Deutsch) or read a description of the current product.
• Christian Friedrich Schönbein received US patent 4,874 for guncotton, 1846.

• Charles Frederick Chandler born 1836: researcher in sugar, petroleum, and illuminating gas industries; a founder of the American Chemical Society
• Rudolph Fittig born 1835: organic synthesis (e.g., lactones, toluene); Wurtz-Fittig reaction; discovered diphenyl phenanthrene and coumarone (benzofuran)
• Louis-Joseph Gay-Lussac born 1778: law of expansion of gases with increasing temperature; law of combining volumes of gases; isolated boron (B, element 5); research on chlorine, fermentation, prussic acid, and composition of water.
• Charles Martin Hall born 1863: discovered method of extracting aluminum electrolytically from bauxite (in his garage). Read more about his relevant patents.
• King James I charters the first English organization of pharmacists ("Master, Wardens and Society of the Art and Mystery of the Apothecaries of the City of London"), 1617 (Julian calendar).
• Nicolas Leblanc born 1742: Leblanc process for making sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO₃) from common salt.
• George Porter born 1920: developed flash photolysis technique for chemical kinetics; Nobel Prize, 1967
• George Eugene Uhlenbeck born 1900: electron spin.

• Rachel Bodley born 1831: professor of chemistry and toxicology (and later dean) at Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania; founding member (and first woman) of American Chemical Society.
• First thermosetting manmade plastic ("Bakelite") patented, 1909 (US patents 942,699 and 942,700 to Leo Baekeland): reaction involved phenol and formaldehyde.
• Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) incorporated, 1926.
• Theodor Schwann born 1810: named and investigated pepsin; coined the word metabolism.

• Eugene Cook Bingham born 1878: plastic flow and viscosity
• Thomas Robert Cech born 1947: discovered cellular role of ribonucleic acid (RNA); Nobel Prize, 1989.
• Jan Ingenhousz born 1730: early work on the phenomenon of photosynthesis, including a description of the production of oxygen by plants (part of his Experiments upon Vegetables, 1779).
• Thomas Edward Thorpe born 1845: atomic weights, viscosity of liquids, and chemical analyses

• Claude-Louis Berthollet born 1749: steps toward the law of mass action; analysis of ammonia; discovered bleaching action of chlorine; discovered composition of prussic acid (HCN); showed that acids need not contain oxygen.
• Fritz Haber born 1868: high-pressure synthesis of ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen (Haber-Bosch process); Nobel Prize, 1918
• Angie Turner King born 1905 (as Angie Turner): one of the earliest African-American women to earn a degree in chemistry, she taught other successful African-American women scientists
• William Nunn Lipscomb, Jr. born 1919: three-dimensional structure of enzymes and proteins; research on boranes; Nobel Prize, 1976.
• Eilhard Mitscherlich read paper on isomorphism to Royal Academy of Science, Berlin, 1819.
• Carl Wilhelm Scheele born 1742: discovered chlorine (Cl, element 17); isolated oxygen ("fire air"); Scheele's green; isolated phosphorus (P, element 15) from bone ash; research on action of light on silver salts; synthesized organic acids

• First commercial experiment in nuclear mining conducted under New Mexico desert, 1967 ("Project Gasbuggy").
• Norbert Rillieux received US Patent 4879 for multiple effect evaporator for sugar refining, 1846.

• Max Born born 1882: quantum mechanics; interpretation of the wavefunction (Born interpretation); Born-Oppenheimer approximation in molecular quantum mechanics; Nobel Prize (physics), 1954.
• Emmanuelle Charpentier born 1968: CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing; Nobel Prize, 2020
• Charles Frederick Cross born 1855: rayon manufacture (cellulose acetate), cellulose and papermaking.
• Paul Greengard born 1925: biochemical action of dopamine and other neurotransmitters; Nobel Prize (Medicine), 2000.
• Vitamin B₁₂ isolated by Merck, Sharp & Dohme Research Laboratories, 1947.
• Horace Wells, dentist, first used nitrous oxide as an anesthetic, 1844.

• Eugen Baumann born 1846: iodine in thyroid.
• First pure compound of californium (Cf, element 98) announced at 1960 meeting of American Nuclear Society.
• William Henry born 1775 (according to Britannica; other sources say 1774): discovered that the solubility of a gas in a liquid is proportional to the gas pressure (Henry's law). View his Epitome of Chemistry or Elements of Experimental Chemistry.
• William Francis Hillebrand born 1853: analytical chemistry of geological samples (particularly separations); chief chemist of US National Bureau of Standards, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology
• Alfred Werner born 1866: coordination chemistry; inorganic complexes, stereochemistry; Nobel Prize, 1913

• Olaf Kristian Birkeland born 1867: first industrial fixing of nitrogen.
• Casein fiber patented, 1938, by Earle Whittier and Stephen Gould.
• William Henry Chandler born 1841: academic chemistry laboratory design and instruction in the US.
• Charles Alfred Coulson born 1910: Valence and molecular structure calculations.
• Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner born 1780: noted triads of elements with similar properties and a progression of atomic weight; catalytic action of platinum; invented instantaneous-lighting lamp (Döbereiner lamp)
• Perkin Elmer incorporated, 1939.
• Max Josef von Pettenkofer born 1818: calorimeter for human energy changes.

• Max Planck introduced the notion of light as quantized energy packets to the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, (German Physical Society) 1900.
• Glenn Seaborg, Edwin McMillan, Joseph Kennedy, and Arthur Wahl bombarded uranium oxide with 16-MeV deuterons to produce plutonium (Pu, element 94) in 1940.
• Edward Lawrie Tatum born 1909: discovered genes which regulate some chemical processes; Nobel Prize (medicine), 1958

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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