AUGUST 1st - When Your Powers Combine, JP Discovers Oxygen

On August 1st, 1774 Joseph Priestley conducted an experiment using focused sunlight through a glass lens and mercuric oxide which resulted in the discovery of oxygen. Before this, the majority of people thought that air was its own separate element, (tracing back to the Ancient Greeks and 90’s educational cartoons, like earth, water, fire, and air--When your powers combine, I am Captain Planet!). So Priestley’s discovery was pretty monumental. Of course Thomas Jefferson was not impressed. He was all like “Alright, alright, alright, Priestley. So you discovered one of the most essential gasses responsible for human existence, and you also invented carbonated water and the rubber eraser. Congratulations. But did you also break down that air is 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen with small remnants of argon, carbon dioxide, and other gasses. I think not.” Which does beg the question why TJ never told the world his findings of this atmospheric breakdown, but then again TJ wasn’t much of a sharer. Except for all the letters he wrote to John Adams. Thick as thieves, those two were. But back to JP. Impressive guy, although he wasn’t much of a namer. He called his discovery of this pure air “dephlogisticated air.” Say that five times fast. Luckily Antoine Lavoisier dispelled Priestley’s notion that burning substances gave off phlogiston and came up with the name oxygen which saved billions of people from having to say things like my dephlogisticated air tank is low or I’m thirsty, could I trouble you for some H2DA. That would have been a pronunciation nightmare and total waste of precious seconds we spend breathing oxygen. But credit where credit is due. Priestley made the discovery. That rubber eraser thing is pretty damn cool too. I don’t care what Thomas Jefferson says.

This day has been Marked.

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