Periodic table (detailed cells)
Although precursors to this table exist, its invention is generally credited to Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869. Mendeleev invented the table to illustrate recurring ("periodic") trends in the properties of the elements. The layout of the table has been refined and extended over time, as new elements have been discovered, and new theoretical models have been developed to explain chemical behavior.
Boron group
Gallium minerals were not known before August 1875, when the element itself was discovered. It was one of the elements that the inventor of the periodic table, Dmitri Mendeleev, had predicted to exist six years earlier. While examining the spectroscopic lines in zinc blende the French chemist Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran found indications of a new element in the ore. In just three months he was able to produce a sample, which he purified by dissolving it in a potassium hydroxide (KOH) solution and sending an electric current through it. The next month he presented his findings to the French Academy of Sciences, naming the new element after the Greek name for Gaul, modern France.