A brief history of the discovery of niobium

Charles Hatchett In 1801, the British chemist Charles Hatchett discovered niobium in a sample of an ore in the British Museum that John Winthrop of Connecticut, USA, had sent to the British Museum in Connecticut, USA in 1734. Because niobium and tantalum are so similar, he initially thought they were the same substance. However, he later discovered that the compounds isolated from the mineral were not chromic acid but oxides of unknown metals. Since the mineral came from the United States, where Columbus discovered it, Hatchett named the ore Columbite in honor of its origin. In fact, because the two elements are so similar in nature, many people believe they are the same element. 1809, another British chemist, William Hyde Wollaston, incorrectly categorized "tantalum" and "columbium" as the same substance, believing that they were identical in all respects except density. The two substances are identical except for their densities.
Wilhelm BlomstrandIn 1846, the German chemist Heinrich Rose analyzed different Tantalum and Coltan ores, and found that there was another element besides Tantalum, which was very close to Tantalum, and called this new element Niobium (Niobium is derived from the Greek mythological character Niobe, because Tantalum is the same as Tantalum). Niobium (Niobium was taken from the Greek mythological character Niobe, as tantalum was named after the Greek mythological character Tantalos, and Niobe was the daughter of Tantalos, which emphasized the similarity between tantalum and niobium). 1864-1865, some scientific research also showed that columbium and niobium were the same element, and the two names were commonly used in the century that followed. 1864, the Swiss In 1864, the Swiss chemist Wilhelm Blomstrand obtained niobium for the first time by reducing chloride with hydrogen, and in 1951 the Nomenclature Committee of the International Association of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) decided to adopt niobium as the official name of the element.