Editing Platinum group (section)

== History ==
Naturally occurring platinum and platinum-rich alloys were known by [[pre-Columbian]] Americans for many years.<ref name="weeks">{{cite book| title = Discovery of the Elements | url = https://archive.org/details/discoveryofeleme0000week | url-access = registration |pages = 385&ndash;407 |author = Weeks, M. E. |year= 1968 |edition = 7 |publisher = Journal of Chemical Education| isbn = 0-8486-8579-2| oclc = 23991202}}</ref> However, even though the metal was used by pre-Columbian peoples, the first European reference to platinum appears in 1557 in the writings of the Italian humanist [[Julius Caesar Scaliger]] (1484–1558) as a description of a mysterious metal found in Central American mines between Darién (Panama) and Mexico ("up until now impossible to melt by any of the Spanish arts").<ref name="weeks"/>

The name platinum is derived from the Spanish word ''platina'' ("little silver"), the name given to the metal by Spanish settlers in [[Colombia]]. They regarded platinum as an unwanted impurity in the silver they were mining.<ref name="weeks"/><ref>{{cite book |title = The Elements: Platinum |author = Woods, Ian |publisher = Benchmark Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hy2WcbKpXSkC |year = 2004 |isbn = 978-0-7614-1550-3}}</ref>

By 1815, rhodium and palladium had been discovered by [[William Hyde Wollaston]], and iridium and osmium by his close friend and collaborator [[Smithson Tennant]].<ref>Platinum Metals Rev., 2003, 47, (4), 175. Bicentenary of Four Platinum Group Metals PART I: RHODIUM AND PALLADIUM – EVENTS SURROUNDING THEIR DISCOVERIES (W. P. Griffith)</ref>