Rome. Immediately after the first neutron bombardments of uranium, Professor Orso Mario Corbino gave a speech at the Accademia dei Lincei, in the presence of the king and the press. Unwisely, while admitting prudence, he declared the discovery of new transuranic elements. It was then proposed to name them Littorio or Mussolinio, but Corbino retorted that this would be an insult to the Duce, given the short lifespan of these elements. He then settled on Ausonius and Hesperius in honor of Italy. The discovery would soon prove unfounded, but the true elements 93 and 94 would indeed be discovered a few years later, in 1940, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California: neptunium and plutonium.
