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The (short) History of Berkelium:
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Berkelium was discovered in 1949 by the amazing Albert Ghiorso, Stanley G. Thompson, and Glenn T. Seaborg at the University of California at Berkeley. (The element was named in honor of the place it was discovered.) As berkelium is a radioactive element, and is not found naturally in the Earth, it had to be "made". All radioactive elements are made by either bombarding an atom's nucleus with small particles, like protons, neutrons, or alpha particles, or, by colliding two nuclei together . In berkelium's case, the element americium-241 was struck with helium-ions, and voila, berkelium! The first compound containing berkelium was made in 1962. This chloride, BkCl3, massed only three billionths of a gram. Other compounds constructed since then are berkelium oxychloride, BkOCl, berkelium fluoride, BkF3, berkelium dioxide BkO2, and berkelium trioxide, BkO3.