Discovery of titanium

Titanium was discovered in 1791 by William Gregor, a Cornish clergyman and amateur mineralogist. While studying a black magnetic sand from a stream in the Manaccan valley in Cornwall, he found that it contained iron and also the oxide of an unfamiliar metal. The German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth rediscovered the element independently in 1795 and named it titanium after the Titans of Greek mythology. The pure metal was first made in 1910 by Matthew Hunter, but it could not be produced economically until William Kroll developed a process in the 1930s. Titanium is as strong as steel but much lighter, and it resists corrosion, so it is widely used in aircraft, spacecraft, medical implants and sports equipment.

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