Timeline of Corrosion History

The following Table presents some historical landmarks of discoveries related to the understanding and management of corrosion. (reference)

Date	Landmark	Source
412 BC	Antifouling paint	Unknown
1675	Mechanical origin of corrosiveness and ‘corrodibility’	Boyle
1763	“Bimetallic corrosion”	HMS Alarm report
1788	Water becomes alkaline during corrosion of iron	Austin
1791	Copper-iron electrolytic galvanic coupling	Galvani
1819	Insight into electrochemical nature of corrosion	Thenard
1824	Cathodic protection of Cu by Zn or Fe	Sir Humphrey Davy
1830	Microstructural aspect of corrosion (Zn)	De la Rive
1834-40	Relations between chemical action and generation of electric currents	Faraday
1836	Passivity of iron	Faraday, Schoenbein
1904	Hydrogen overvoltage as a function of current	Tafel
1905	Carbonic and other acids are not essential for the corrosion of iron	Dunstan, Jowett, Goulding, Tilden
1907	Oxygen action as cathodic stimulator	Walker, Cederholm
1908-10	Compilation of corrosion rates in different media	Heyn, Bauer
1910	Inhibitive paint	Cushman, Gardner
1913	Study of high temperature oxidation kinetics of tungsten	Langmuir
1916	Differential aeration currents	Aston
1920-3	'season-cracking' of brass = intergranular corrosion	Moore, Beckinsale
1923	High temperature formation of oxides	Pilling, Bedworth
1924	Galvanic corrosion	Whitman, Russell
1930-31	Subscaling or “internal corrosion”	Smith
1933	Probabilistic nature of corrosion	Evans
1931-9	Quantitative and electrochemical nature of corrosion	Evans
1938	Anodic and cathodic inhibitors	Chyzewski, Evans
1938	E-pH thermodynamic diagrams	Pourbaix
1950	Self-accelerating (autocatalytic) nature of localized corrosion	Uhlig
1956	Tafel extrapolation for measurement of kinetic parameters	Stern, Geary
1968	Electrochemical noise signature of corrosion	Iverson
1970	Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)	Epelboin