Who first isolated fluorine?

The French chemist Henri Moissan was the first to successfully isolate fluorine in 1886. He achieved this by electrolyzing a solution of potassium hydrogen fluoride in hydrogen fluoride, a feat for which he was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.12

While earlier scientists, such as André-Marie Ampère, had correctly hypothesized that hydrofluoric acid contained an unknown element analogous to chlorine, the extreme reactivity and toxicity of fluorine made it one of the most difficult challenges in inorganic chemistry to isolate for over 150 years. It was not until 1986 that a chemical (non-electrolytic) method for preparing the element was reported by American chemist Karl O. Christe.13