Twelfth-century Arabian alchemists may have accidentally isolated elemental phosphorus, but the records are unclear.

Henning Brand, a German merchant of Hamburg whose hobby is alchemy, apparently discovers phosphorus in 1669 during his quest for the philosopher's stone.

He had allowed fifty buckets of urine to stand until they putrefied and “bred worms”, and then boiled the urine down to a paste and heated it with sand, thereby distilling elemental phosphorus from the mixture.

Brand reports his discovery in a letter to his compatriot, the philosopher, mathematician, and political advisor Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

Subsequent demonstrations of this element and its ability to glow in the dark, or “phosphoresce”, excite public interest.

The element, which glows because of its rapid oxidation, is named for Greek fosforos, or phosphorous, light bringing.