I'd like to recommend Jim Al-Khalili's excellent "Chemistry a volatile history" BBC documentary. At point point he describes how alchemists were attempting to c

I'd like to recommend Jim Al-Khalili's excellent "Chemistry a volatile history" BBC documentary. At point point he describes how alchemists were attempting to convert urine to gold (hey, they're both yellow...) and by boiling it down accidentally discovered phosphorous. Ah, detailed on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemistry:_A_Volatile_History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemistry:_A_Volatile_History