You're listening to Chemistry in its element brought to you by Chemistry World, the magazine of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Polonium, (element 84), was discovered in 1898 and named after Poland, ...

She suspected the presence of an even more powerful element. MARIE-NOELLE HIMBERT: Here, Po, Polonium is the first element that they discovered. CHRIS PACKHAM: It’s remarkable, isn’t it?

In the UK, two Russian ex-secret service agents were targeted: Alexander Litvinenko fatally with radioactive polonium-210 in 2006, and Sergei Skripal with the toxic nerve agent Novichok in 2018.