Titanium was first discovered in 1791 in Menachan Valley, Cornwall, England, by clergyman and amateur chemist William Gregor.  Gregor analyzed gun powder-like sand and found a reddish brown clay he could not identify.  Four years later in Berlin, renowned chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth independently discovered the element in rutile. Klaproth named the element Titanium, after the mythological Titans, first sons of the earth.

Titanium and its alloys have proven to be technically superior in a wide variety of industrial and commercial applications in such fields as aerospace, architecture, sporting equipment, military hardware, watch making, eyewear, medical implants, dental products and more.

The complex process of converting titanium ore into metal has only been commercially viable for a little more than 50 years. The use of titanium has since then expanded by an average of 8% per year. The largest deposits of ilumenite sands and rulite ( from which titanium is derived ) are found in Canada and Australia.