Samarium's Birth Certificate
Samarium was first discovered by the Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac when he was experimenting with the material called dydmia in 1853. When he found the new element he decided to name it samarium. The name samarium came about because it came from the element samarskite after Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran was able to isolate it from the smarskite.