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Humans know about carbon, sulfur, iron, tin, lead, copper, mercury, silver, and gold.
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German physician Hennig Brand discovers phosphorus
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Swedish chemist Georg Brandt discovers
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English chemist and physicist Henry Cavendish discovers hydrogen
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Scottish physician and chemist Daniel Rutherford discovers nitrogen
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Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovers chlorine
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English chemist Joseph Priestley and Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele discover oxygen
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French chemist Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin discovers chromium
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English chemist Sir Humphry Davy discovers potassium and sodium
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English chemist Sir Humphry Davy discovers strontium, calcium and magnesium.
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French chemist Bernard Courtois discovers iodine
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Swedish chemist Johan August Arfwedson discovers lithium
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Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius discovers silicon
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Danish chemist and physicist Hans Christian Oersted discovers aluminum
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French chemist Henri Moissan discovers fluorine
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English chemists William Ramsay and Morris Travers discover krypton.
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French physicists Marie and Pierre Curie discover polonium.
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University of California at Berkeley researcher Glenn Seaborg and others prepare plutonium.