The last of the platinum group metals to be discovered has helped to improve the qualities and effectiveness of its relatives and other metals which improve our lives.

Named after the Latin for Russia, "Ruthenia", unsubstantiated reports of ruthenium's isolation had appeared in 1807 from the Polish chemist Andrzej Sniadecki who had christened it vestium.

It was given its final name in 1827 when Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Gottfried Osann examined the remains of platinum ore from the Ural mountains that was insoluble in aqua regia (a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid) and identified ruthenium oxide.
In 1844, Russian professor Karl Karlovich Klaus, obtained a pure sample from this oxide and ruthenium became the last of the platinum group metals (PGMs) to be isolated. The Urals are still a source of ruthenium and it is also found in North and South America and South Africa.

Today, ruthenium is used primarily as a hardener for platinum and palladium and has a remarkable effect on titanium whose corrosion resistance is boosted a hundred times by the addition of just 0.1% of ruthenium.