Wilhelm Röntgen's x-rays
On 8 November 1895 Wilhelm Röntgen discovered and termed X-rays when he was doing experiments using ‘Crookes tubes’. He later published his findings in a paper called “A new kind of rays” in which he explained that “The tube [was] surrounded by a fairly close-fitting shield of black paper” and despite no light coming out of the box, another “paper covered on one side with barium platinocyanide [lit] up with brilliant fluorescence when brought into the neighborhood of the tube”—and “still visible at two metres distance”. He proceeds to describe various substances which appear mostly transparent to these rays and finally shows that images are easily generated. When he took the image of his wife's hand (which was the picture published in the paper) she exclaimed "I have seen my death!"
Source: Röntgen, W. On a New Kind of Rays. Science 3, 227–231 (1896).
Public Domain
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!