July 3rd Antoine-Jerome Balard announced the discovery of bromine (Br) on this day in 1826

The French chemist was an unknown young laboratory assistant when he discovered the element in seawater, which is a liquid at room temperature. This was independent to Carl Jacob Löwig’s preparation of bromine one year earlier. The word bromine comes from the Greek word bromos, meaning “stench”.

July 4th
German chemist Ernst Otto Beckmann was born on this day in 1853

He is known for inventing the Beckmann thermometer – a device used to measure small differences in temperature, rather than absolute temperature. The thermometer typically covers a small range of 5 °C, but it is possible to estimate temperature changes with an accuracy of 0.001 degrees.

July 5th
Hungarian-Swedish chemist George de Hevesy died on this day in 1966

He was awarded the 1943 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on radioisotopes and their use as tracers in studying the chemical processes within living systems. He also discovered the element hafnium (Hf) with Dick Coster in 1923.