Adapted from an image by Los Alamos Laboratory (Attribution), via Wikimedia Commons.
1916–1957
Joseph W. Kennedy
Discovered plutonium in 1941.
Element
94PuPlutonium
1941
Glenn Seaborg, Arthur Wahl, Joseph Kennedy and Edwin McMillan made element 94 at Berkeley from uranium bombarded in the cyclotron, and proved it was new in February 1941. It was named plutonium, after the planet beyond Neptune, and kept secret until after the Second World War.
Keep exploring
Where the dates and stories on this page come from; each event on the timeline links to its own source.
- Joseph W. KennedyAtomic Heritage Foundation
- PlutoniumRoyal Society of Chemistry
- Joseph W. KennedyWikipedia