Birth of Antoine Henri Becquerel

Antoine Henri Becquerel was born on 15 December 1852 in Paris. A French physicist, Becquerel discovered radioactivity in 1896 when he found that uranium salts left in a drawer darkened photographic plates even without exposure to light. His finding led Marie and Pierre Curie to study the phenomenon and identify new radioactive elements, and the three shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. He came from a distinguished family of scientists, holding the same chair at the Museum of Natural History in Paris as his father and grandfather. The becquerel, the SI unit of radioactivity, honors his name.

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