How the Periodic Table was made

Antoine Lavoisier

1789

Lavoisier was the first person to attempt to group the elements based on their properties, grouping them into gases, non-metals, metals and earths. He also proposed that water was a compound and that hydrogen, oxygen, carbon etc. were elements.

John Newlands

1864

Newlands was the first person to arrange elements into a table based on their atomic mass. He discovered that every 8 elements had similar properties and called it the law of octaves. He made 8 groups of 8 elements into the table but didn't leave gaps for undiscovered elements.

Dmitri Mendeleev

1869

Mendeleev is widely known as one of the greatest contributors to the periodic table we use and study today. He also invented the Periodic Law.

Henry Moseley

1913

Instead of using atomic mass, Moseley used atomic numbers of elements to arrange a periodic table of elements. He discovered that he could identify elements based on how many protons they had, further building upon Mendeleev's table.