Humphry Davy

Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet, was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for the first time: potassium and sodium in 1807 and calcium, strontium, barium, magnesium and boron the following year, as well as for discovering the elemental nature of chlorine and iodine. Davy also studied the forces involved in these separations, inventing the new field of electrochemistry. Davy is also credited with discovering clathrate hydrates.

17 December 1778

Born on the same birth day (17 December): Arnaud Clément • Arthur Fiedler • Bo Guagua • Calvin Waller • Eva Nansen • Grethe Grünberg • Guerschon Yabusele • Inna Lasovskaya • Jerry Hsu • Joseph Henry • Jules de Goncourt • Maria I of Portugal • Maurice Peoples • Patricia Kú Flores • Paul Dobson (footballer) • Paula Radcliffe • Sotiris Kaiafas • Thomas Tickell • Wendy Hoyte • Willem Schermerhorn

Born in the same month (December 1778): Anders Sandøe Ørsted • John Ordronaux (privateer) • Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac • Marie-Thérèse, Duchess of Angoulême