Joseph Priestley, born on 24 March 1733, in Birstall,
United Kingdom, was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist
theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist
who published over 150 works. He has historically been credited with the
independent discovery of oxygen in 1774 by the thermal decomposition of
mercuric oxide, having isolated it. Although Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm
Scheele also has strong claims to the discovery, Priestley published his
findings first. Scheele discovered it by heating potassium nitrate, mercuric
oxide, and many other substances in about 1772.
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