Why was uranium mined in the 1500s, but only "discovered" in 1789?
score:65
Uranium oxide in the form of the mineral pitchblende was known and mined - as the Wikipedia article says. So the short answer is that as far as anyone in the 1500s was concerned, they were mining pitchblende and using it to make things turn yellow - they had no reason to care about where pitchblende came from.
The use of uranium in its natural oxide form dates back to at least the year 79 CE, when it was used in the Roman Empire to add a yellow color to ceramic glazes. ... Starting in the late Middle Ages, pitchblende was extracted from the Habsburg silver mines in Joachimsthal, Bohemia (now Jáchymov in the Czech Republic), and was used as a coloring agent in the local glassmaking industry. [WP]
Discovering what pitchblende itself was composed of did not come until Klaproth (or possibly, per Wikipedia, until Péligot in 1841 - Klaproth thought he had identified it, but Péligot was the first to extract pure uranium).
This situation was not unique to uranium; cobalt ores have been used for millennia to colour things, but the underlying element was not identified until the mid-18th century.
More post
- 📝 What "other property" was considered for representation at the Constitutional Convention?
- 📝 Why don't tanks have radar aimed guns?
- 📝 At what age did samurai children start going into battles in the Sengoku era?
- 📝 What is "the dead credit"?
- 📝 Why did Francisco Franco never reestablish the Spanish monarchy?
- 📝 Who placed first on entrance exam 1805 at École Polytechnique?
- 📝 'Sub rosa' council meetings
- 📝 What uniform is this chap wearing?
- 📝 Has an army ever not cancel its preplanned attack after a security breach?
- 📝 Why was the Declaration of Independence handwritten, rather than printed with a printing press?
- 📝 Whig party identification in the House of Lords
- 📝 How widespread was practice of fusion of Graeco-Roman and barbarian names?
- 📝 Who are these red flag worshipers from these early maps?
- 📝 About competition an Capitalism
- 📝 When was the deadliest year in human history in absolute terms?
- 📝 Why are former SS Engineers and Scientists who worked for NASA still honored?
- 📝 Who was the first to point out that transmutation of gold would be mostly useless, since it would simply lead to inflation?
- 📝 Were there often intra-USSR wars? If not, why not?
- 📝 What are the scholarly opinions on the idea of the "European Civil War"?
- 📝 Were the Pechenegs at some point Manicheans?
- 📝 Has there been significant progress in our knowledge of the Aztecs and/or Maya since the '60s?
- 📝 In Shanghai before World War II what were relations like between the Europeans living there and the local Chinese?
- 📝 Did cavalrymen drive in tanks in World War II?
- 📝 Were Jefferson and Madison Jacksonians?
- 📝 Did Catherine of Aragon use the title Princess of Wales before she was married to Prince Arthur?
- 📝 Why did India choose August 15th as its Independence Day?
- 📝 What happened to all the notable Roman families?
- 📝 Was Kaaba initially a Shiva temple?
- 📝 Before 1961, what did they think would happen to people in weightlessness?
- 📝 What was the hippie movement? Why did it decline?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why was uranium mined in the 1500s, but only "discovered" in 1789?
- 📝 Why was the Red Army successful against the Japanese in 1939 but perform poorly against Finland 1939-40 and early part of WW2?
- 📝 Before entering WW II, why was the US so against Japanese aggression in China but did nothing about Germany in Europe?
- 📝 Why was Copernicus not persecuted by the church, but Galileo was?
- 📝 Why was Poland able to resist the Swedish invasion during the Deluge, but not during the time of Charles XII?
- 📝 Why was only the Silver medal awarded for music at the 1932s Olympics?
- 📝 Why was silage only invented in the 19th century?
- 📝 Why was the requirement for Impeachment set at simple majority for House of Representatives, but supermajority (2/3) for a trial at the Senate?
- 📝 Why was there a "workers' militia" in Eastern Europe but not in the USSR?
- 📝 Why was Benedict Arnold liked by the Tories but scorned by the Whigs?
- 📝 Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
- 📝 Why did archery not make a comeback when armor was phased out in the 18th century?
- 📝 Why was Poland spared from the Black Death?
- 📝 Why was Africa colonized last of the continents in the Age of Discovery?
- 📝 Why did the Western Roman Empire collapse but not the Eastern Roman Empire?
- 📝 Why was Britain willing to return Hong Kong but not Gibraltar?
- 📝 Was hay invented only in the Middle Ages in Europe?
- 📝 Why was the Scout movement so successful?
- 📝 Why was the Council of Nicea held in Nicea rather than Rome or Constantinople?
- 📝 Why was World War I ended on Nov 11 11:00, rather than immediately upon signing the armistice?
- 📝 In the Soviet Union, why was the Cheka renamed so many times?
- 📝 Why was "leaping into the river" a valid trial outcome to prove one's innocence?
- 📝 Why was the Japanese Army's fatalities inflicted:suffered ratio so low in the Pacific theatre?
- 📝 Why was capturing the south of Okinawa necessary?
- 📝 Why were the drawings of Colossus burnt after WW2 and why was its very existence "of course" kept secret?
- 📝 Why did only the English adopt, evolve and use the longbow en masse in war?
- 📝 Why were Albanians the only nation in the Balkans who converted to Islam during the Ottoman occupation?
- 📝 Why could China keep most of the lands it conquered after 17th century but European powers could not?
- 📝 Why was there a surge in the US incarceration rate during the 1990s?
- 📝 Why is this Latin text black but the Latin numerals are red?