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Wilhelm Röntgen passes an electric current through an evacuated glass tube, revealing continuous X-rays. He demonstrates that this phenomenon is due to the emission of beta radiation and alpha particles (helium nuclei).
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Henri Becquerel finds that pitchblende, an ore containing radium and uranium, creates beta radiation and emits alpha particles.
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Ernest Rutherford demonstrates that the emission of an alpha or beta particle from a nucleus transmutes that atom into an atom of a different isotope or element.
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Frederick Soddy discovers that naturally radioactive elements like uranium, plutonium, and thorium can occur as different isotopes with identical chemical properties.
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Otto Hahn shows that fission releases not only a great deal of energy, but also neutrons which can proceed to induce fission in other nuclei.
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Francis Perrin and Rudolf Peierls demonstrate that a neutron-absorbing material such as graphite can be used to limit the propagation of neutrons and thereby control the progression and rate of nuclear reactions, a principle that forms the basis for nuclear power generation.
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A group led by Enrico Fermi constructs a reactor from graphite, uranium, and control rods of different transition metals, at the University of Chicago and demonstrates that it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction.
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The US Navy creates the Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) for shipping use, beginning with the 1954 launch of the submarine USS Nautilus. The PWR, designed to use enriched uranium oxide fuel while cooled and moderated by ordinary (light) water, quickly becomes the preferred type of commercial reactor.
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The world's first nuclear powered electricity generator begins operation in Obninsk, USSR. This reactor is water-cooled and graphite-moderated and will serve as a prototype for other graphite channel reactors, including the Chernobyl-type High Power Channel Reactor (RMBK), the favored commercial reactor design of the USSR.
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India officially adopts a three-stage programme for adopting nuclear power. Stage III calls for thorium-fueled thermal breeder reactors to be in operation at some point during the 21st century.
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Researchers at the Oak Ridge national laboratory study a Molten Salt Breeder Reactor (MSBR) using U-233 from the thorium fuel cycle as the fissile fuel. The core principle of study is the engineering feasibility the MSBR, which quickly falls out of favor due to major drops in the price of uranium, making enriched uranium fuel a cheaper commericial option.
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A revolutionary pebble-bed (graphite pebble moderated) reactor testing a thorium fuel begins operation in Hamm-Uentrop, Germany. Unfortunately, a combination of parent company bankruptcy and paranoia from the Chernobyl fallout causes it to be shuttered in 1989.
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Interest in designing, constructing, and operating micro nuclear reactors, which are generally ~30 meters in size and produce ~10-50 MW of power, skyrockets. The Toshiba 4S design in particular is proposed to operate a planned power plant in Galena, Alaska.
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Thor Energy, a Norwegian company begins installation of fuel rods of Thorium MOX (thorium-plutonium) fuel, at the Halden Research Reactor in Halden, Norway.
