Oxygen

Joseph Priestley was one of the most influential and colorful scientists of the eighteenth century. As one of the founding fathers of chemistry, Joseph Priestley is credited with the discovery of oxygen in 1774. Priestley was also an English theologian, natural philosopher, and political theorist. Although oxygen was his most important discovery, he also accidentally invented carbonated water in 1767, when he discovered a method of infusing water with carbon dioxide. Priestley also identified a dozen key chemical compounds such as ammonia, sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide and nitrogen dioxide.