Otto Hahn: Discovery of Fission

Otto Hahn

German chemist and radiochemist. He advanced the study of radioactive elements, making major achievements in the study of radiothorium and protactinium, the discovery of nuclear recoil phenomena and nuclear isomers, and dating via the rubidium-strontium method. In collaboration with Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann, he discovered nuclear fission of uranium in 1938 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944 for this accomplishment. During World War II, he was involved in German nuclear research, but opposed the persecution of Jewish researchers by the Nazis, and worked toward the reconstruction of the German scientific community and the anti-nuclear weapons movement after the war.

Timeline

Category
Element

Year	Otto Hahn
1879	Birth of Otto Hahn (Period: March 8, 1879, Location: Frankfurt am Main (present-day Germany))
1897	Studying Chemistry at the University of Marburg (Age: 17 years old, Period: 1897–1901, Location: Marburg, Germany)
1904	Research under William Ramsay (Age: 24 years old, Period: 1904–1905, Location: London, United Kingdom)
1905	Research with Ernest Rutherford (Age: 25 years old, Period: 1905–1906, Location: Montreal, Canada)
1907	Start of Joint Research with Lise Meitner (Age: 27 years old, Period: 1907–1912, Location: Berlin, Germany)
1912	Appointment as Head of Radioactivity Department at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry (Otto Hahn, Age: 32 years old, Period: 1912, Location: Berlin-Dahlem, Germany)
1913	Marriage (Otto Hahn, Edith Junghans, Age: 34 years old, Period: March 22, 1913, Location: Szczecin, Poland (formerly Stettin, Germany))
1914	World War I (Age: 34 years old, Period: 1914–1918, Location: Western Front, Belgium and France)
1915	Second Battle of Ypres and Participation in Chemical Warfare (Age: 36 years old, Period: April–May 1915, Location: Ypres, Belgium)
1917	Discovery of Protactinium (Age: 37 years old, Period: 1917–1918, Location: Berlin, Germany)
1921	Discovery of Nuclear Isomerism (Age: 41 years old, Period: 1921, Location: Berlin, Germany)
1933	Persecution of Jewish Researchers by the Nazis and Lise Meitner's Exile (Otto Hahn, Age: 53 years old, Period: 1933–1938, Location: Berlin, Germany)
1934	Uranium Research by Neutron Irradiation (Age: 54 years old, Period: 1934–1938, Location: Berlin, Germany)
1939	World War II (Age: 59 years old, Period: 1939–1945, Location: UK, France, North Africa, Mediterranean, Atlantic, etc.) Nuclear Research during World War II (Age: 59 years old, Period: 1939–1945, Location: Berlin and other locations in Germany)
1944	Hahn's Nobel Prize in Chemistry (Otto Hahn, Age: 64 years old, Period: 1944–1946, Location: Stockholm, Sweden, and other locations)
1945	Nobel Prize in Chemistry (Otto Hahn, Age: 65 years old, Period: 1945, Location: Stockholm, Sweden) Farm Hall Internment (Age: 66 years old, Period: July 1945 – January 1946, Location: Farm Hall, England)
1946	President of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (Age: 66 years old, Period: 1946, Location: Germany)
1948	First President of the Max Planck Society (Age: 68 years old, Period: 1948–1960, Location: Göttingen and surrounding West Germany)
1957	Göttingen Manifesto (Age: 77 years old, Period: 1957, Location: Göttingen, West Germany) Participation in the Göttingen Manifesto (Age: 77 years old, Period: 1957, Location: Göttingen, West Germany)
1959	Co-founding of the Association of German Scientists (Age: 79 years old, Period: 1959, Location: Berlin, West Germany)
1968	Death of Otto Hahn (Age: 89 years old, Period: July 28, 1968)

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Element

Europe World

Group	List
British Politics	David Lloyd George Winston Churchill Stanley Baldwin Neville Chamberlain Clement Attlee Anthony Eden Edward Wood Ernest Bevin
French Politics	Georges Clemenceau Charles de Gaulle Paul Reynaud Édouard Daladier Léon Blum Philippe Pétain Maxime Weygand Maurice Gamelin
Jewish relief	Anne Frank Etty Hillesum Edith Stein Raoul Wallenberg Aristides de Sousa Mendes Varian Fry Nicholas Winton Chiune Sugihara
Nuclear Science	Lise Meitner James Chadwick John Cockcroft Ernest Walton Patrick Blackett Mark Oliphant Otto Hahn Otto Robert Frisch

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Otto Hahn: Discovery of Fission

Otto Hahn

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