Röntgen discovers X-rays

Experimenting with a cathode-ray tube in his Würzburg laboratory on 8 November 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen saw a screen glow across the room and found rays that passed through flesh but not bone. Weeks later he imaged his wife Anna Bertha's hand. Within months doctors were using X-rays, and in 1901 he received the first Nobel Prize in Physics.