Timeline of chemical element isolation

• prehistoric - sulphur, mercury, copper, silver, gold,
• between 1730 and 1737 - George Brandt: cobalt
• c1250 - Albertus Magnus: arsenic
• c1450 - Basil Valentine: antimony
• 1766 - Henry Cavendish: hydrogen
• 1770 - Joseph Priestley: oxygen
• 1772 - Daniel Rutherford: nitrogen, first publication of discovery; also Joseph Priestley, Henry Cavendish and Carl Wilhelm Scheele; first recognition as an element Antoine Lavoisier
• 1774 - Carl Wilhelm Scheele: chlorine
• 1789 - Martin Heinrich Klaproth: uranium
• 1807 - Sir Humphry Davy: isolated sodium and potassium
• 1817 - Johann Arfvedson: lithium
• 1932 - Harold Clayton Urey, Ferdinand G. Brickwedde, and G. M. Murphy: deuterium
• 1935 - Ernest Rutherford, L. E. Oliphant, and Paul Harteck: synthesized tritium