Cobalt was identified in 1735 by the Swedish chemist Georg Brandt, who showed that the blue colour of certain glasses came from a new metal and not from bismuth, as was then believed. For centuries the ores had been mined in Saxony, where they were difficult to work and gave off poisonous arsenic fumes when roasted, which miners blamed on mischievous underground goblins called kobolds. The metal's name comes from this word. Compounds of cobalt had long been used to colour glass, ceramics and pigments a deep blue, and cobalt blue decorated Chinese porcelain. Cobalt is a hard, magnetic metal used in alloys, in rechargeable batteries and in cancer radiotherapy. It is also an essential part of vitamin B12.
Before and after
- 31 March 1732Birth of Joseph Haydn
- 13 March 1733Birth of Joseph Priestley
- from 10 October 1733 to 3 October 1735War of the Polish Succession
- 1734Founding of University of Göttingen
- 1735Discovery of cobalt
- 1735Euler solves the Konigsberg bridge problem and founds graph theory
- 1735Linnaeus publishes Systema Naturae
- 19 October 1735Birth of John Adams
- from 1736 to 1796Afsharid dynasty
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The era
This moment belongs to the Early modern world (1500 CE to 1760 CE), voyages, printing and new ideas. You can also browse everything in the 18th century.