the day was adopted, the famous declaration of independence, drawn up by tomos jefferson benjamin, franklin and other founding fathers of the united states on june 7, 1903 at a chemical congress in berlin, german scientist willy markwald announced the discovery of a new chemical element, polonium. he recognized the priority of the french physicists marie and pierre curie who discovered polonium in 4 years. prior to this, mark wald, conducted his research, too.