The History of Nitrogen
Discoverer: Daniel Rutherford
Discovered at: Scotland
Discovery date: 1772
Origin of name: From the Greek words "nitron genes" meaning "nitre" and "forming" and the Latin word "nitrum" (nitre is a common name for potassium nitrate, KNO#)
It was known during the 18th century that air contains at least two gases, one of which supports combustion and life, and the other of which does not. Nitrogen was discovered by Daniel Rutherford in 1772, who called it noxious air, but Scheele, Cavendish, Priestley, and others at about the same time studied "burnt" or "dephlogisticated" air, as air without oxygen was then called. Rutherford discovered "noxious air" by putting a mouse inside of a bell jar and waited for him to suffocate. When the mouse suffocated he put another mouse in the jar that died a short time later. Nitrogen is a Noble Gas which makes it for the most part inert unless subjected to catalysts or high temperatures and or pressures. The element seemed so inert that Lavoisier named it azote, meaning "without life".