Martin Heinrich Klaproth

Martin Heinrich Klaproth, isolating a black powder from pitchblende in 1789, concludes that it contains an undiscovered element, which he names it uranium after the recently discovered planet Uranus.

The German chemist has in fact discovered the oxide.

Also in 1789 he identifies the element zirconium from its oxide during his investigation of the gemstone now called zircon and named for the Arabic word for the stone, zargun (gold color), 

Adair Crawford and William Cruikshank, at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, London, in 1790, investigating strontianite (strontium carbonate) found in a lead mine at Strontian in Argyll, Scotland, identify a further earth, strontia (strontium oxide).

Thomas Charles Hope, Martin H. Klaproth, and others later confirm their finding.

William Gregor discovers a compound of a new element (now known to be titanium) and oxygen in Cornish beach sands (rutile) in 1791.

Later in this years, Martin Heinrich Klaproth discovers what is now known as titanium in the mineral rutile.

Believing this to be a new discovery, Klaproth names it titanium after the Titans of Greek Mythology, but eventually it is clarified that Gregor had made the discovery first.

Gregor, an English clergyman, chemist, and mineralogist, is credited with the discovery, but the element retains the name chosen by Klaproth.

German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth demonstrates in 1802-03 that while meteoric iron contains nickel, native iron does not.

Martin H. Klaproth makes the actual identification of titanium’s oxide from Hungarian rutile deposits.

A German chemist working independently in 1795, he names its metal constituent titanium after the Titans, the giants of Greek mythology.

Martin Klaproth, who has continued the chemical investigations of Müller von Reichenstein, names the newly discovered metal tellurium, from Latin tellus, “the Earth”, in 1796.

Major breakthroughs in chemistry occur in 1803, with the identification of the elements rhodium and palladium (by William Hyde Wollaston); osmium and iridium (by Smithson Tennant); and cerium (by Wilhelm Hisinger, Jons Jakob Berzelius and Martin Heinrich Klaproth).

Another new earth, from the mineral later named gadolinite in Gadolin's honor, is reported independently in the literature in 1803 by several chemists, including Martin Heinrich Klaproth and, working together, Jöns Jakob Berzelius, and Wilhelm Hisinger.

The asteroid Ceres, which had just been discovered two years before, lends its name, as ceria, to the newly obtained earth.

Researchers refer to yttria and ceria as the rare earths, because they have been discovered in a rare mineral, and closely resemble other known earths.

The elements of which yttria and ceria were the oxides then receive the names yttrium and cerium, respectively.