Titanium has been around for many years, since 1790 and gets its name from the Greek God “Titan”, the God of enormous strength. Titanium was first discovered by the amateur geologist Reverend William Gregor from Cornwall, England. William Gregor had a special fondness to minerals. He found Titanium in his hometown, Cornwall, in the mineral Menachanite. Gregor observed that the sand-like object was mostly magnetite, but he described that some of it looked like ‘reddish brown calx’ which resulted to be Titanium. Maccanite was the original name given to the element by Gregor, in honor of the parish Mannacan. A Couple years later, this element was rediscovered by a German chemist, Martin Klaproth. This time, titanium was found in rutile, a mineral which is currently composed primarily from titanium dioxide. Klaproth was the person to name the new element and named it after “Titan” because of the elements strength. In 1797 Klaporth heard of Gregor’s discovery and concluded that titanium and Maccanite are the same element, therefore William Gregor was the element’s true discoverer. However, Klaporth had the honor to have “Titanium” be the name of the newly discovered element.
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