antoine henri becquerel
Radioactivity was discovered in 1896 by a French physicist named Antoine Henri Becquerel. Becquerel was experimenting with uranium, which glows after being exposed to sunlight. Becquerel wanted to see if the glow was caused by rays of energy, like rays of light and X-rays. He placed a bit of uranium on a photographic plate. The plate was similar to film thats used today to take X-rays. You can see an example of an X-ray in Figure below . As Becquerel predicted, the uranium left an image on the photographic plate. This meant that uranium gives off rays after being exposed to sunlight.