Polonium years) can be made through the alpha, proton, or deuteron bombardment of lead or bismuth in a cyclotron. Tentatively called "radium F", polonium was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898, and was named after Marie Curie's native land of Poland (). Poland at the time was under Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian partition, and did not exist as an independent country. It was Curie's hope that naming the element after her native land would publicize its lack of independence. Polonium may be the first element named to highlight a political controversy. This element was the first one discovered by
Polonium trioxide that polonium trioxide may be formed by heating polonium dioxide and chromium trioxide together in air. It is very difficult to oxidize polonium beyond Po(IV); for example, the only hexahalide of polonium is the hexafluoride, PoF, and fluorine is already the most electronegative element (though polonium hexaiodide was once reportedly formed in the vapour phase, it immediately decomposed). However, the difficulty in obtaining polonium trioxide and polonates (containing the anion, analogous to sulfate, selenate, and tellurate) by direct oxidation of Po(IV) compounds may be due to the fact that polonium-210, while the most easily available isotope of polonium, is strongly