Carl Wilhelm Scheele
1742 – 1786 · aged 44
Swedish German chemist who discovered oxygen
- Born
- 9 Dec 1742 · Stralsund
- Died
- 21 May 1786 · Köping
Life timeline
Their life from birth to death. On the timeline, world events of the time are shown faintly.
- 9 Dec 1742BornBorn in Stralsund
- 21 May 1786DiedDied in Köping
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Meanwhile in the world
Major world events during their lifetime (1742 – 1786).
- 1756 – 1763Seven Years' War
- c. 1760 – 1840Industrial Revolution
- 1765 – 1783American Revolution
Biography
Carl Wilhelm Scheele (German: [ˈʃeːlə], Swedish: [ˈɧêːlɛ]; 9 December 1742 – 21 May 1786) was a German-Swedish pharmaceutical chemist.
Scheele discovered oxygen (although Joseph Priestley published his findings first), and identified the elements molybdenum, tungsten, barium, nitrogen, and chlorine, among others. Scheele discovered organic acids tartaric, oxalic, uric, lactic, and citric, as well as hydrofluoric, hydrocyanic, and arsenic acids. He preferred speaking German to Swedish his whole life, as German was commonly spoken among Swedish pharmacists.
Doctors said that he died of mercury poisoning, having spent his life working as a chemist.
Text from the Wikipedia article Carl Wilhelm Scheele, CC BY-SA 4.0
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