Yellow-gray metal which readily oxidizes forming a multitude of beautiful colors m.p. 822 ºC; 1512 ºF b.p. 1597 ºC; 2907 ºF density 5.243 g/cc (25 ºC); 327.31 pound/cubic foot (77 ºF)	memory peg
	1901 Eugène-Anatole Demarçay, France
	Europa, continent

The story of the new rare earth elements was not finished by Lecoq's discovery of Samarium. In fact, Lecoq's samarium was a mixture of Samarium and Europium.

Eugène-Anatole Demarçay (1852-1904) separated it in 1901 by fractional crystallization of double Magnesium nitrates (note). Although as early as 1892 Lecoq himself had obtained basic fractions from Samarium-Gadolinium concentrates having spark spectral lines not accounted for by Samarium or Gadolinium and thus by new elements, which he provisially named Zε and Zζ (note). And in 1896 Demarçay himself had announced a new element between Samarium and Gadolinium, provisially indicated with Σ (note), and in 1900 he showed that this element was identical with Zζ. Only in 1901 he succeeded to separate the element and could get it its name:

The element is named after the continent Europe.
According the the mythology, the continent got its name from Ευρωπη [Eurōpè], daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor, who was abducted by Zeus in the shape of a bull (illustration to the right from the Atlas Maior by Joan Blaeu 1662). She was the sister of Καδμος [Cadmus] (cf. Cadmium).

A more modern etymology is that the name Europe is derived from the Assyrian ereb, ireb, meaning "sunset, west", thus Land in the West, as opposite to açu, sunrise or East, from which the continent name Asia is derived (note) .

See also: Chronological list of discovery of the rare earths, their names in different languages etc. on the Yttrium page

Further reading:

• Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Heny M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 667-699.
• Seltene Erden. Gmelins Handbuch der anorganische Chemie, 8. Aufl.; System-Nummer 39 (1938).