Did you know that for almost a century we have illuminated our homes thanks to a radioactive element named in honor of Thor?
Thorium (Th) has an incredible history: mistaken for something else, purified with ingenious tricks and the protagonist of a real industrial “fever” thanks to Auer nets. But behind its light there was a mystery that put the greatest chemists of the nineteenth century in crisis.
/C. R. Pisano”
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/torio-th-gianluca-r-pisano-resnf/
…”since the early nineteenth century, the interesting property of certain refractory oxides, first of all LIME, to emit intense light if strongly heated had been noticed. In particular, much more light than the classic black body brought to the same temperature would have emitted.”