Professor Röntgen and "Jack the Ripper": Were X-rays Discovered on November 8?

November 8, 1895, is widely considered the date when Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) supposedly first noticed the glimmer that led to the discovery of X-rays.

Henry Jackson Wells Dam (1856-1906), an American playwright and journalist with a checkered biography, forced his way in - through blatant dishonesty - to obtain an interview with Röntgen at the end of January 1896. His report based on this interview was published in the April issue of two illustrated monthly periodicals in New York City and London. Dam indicated that Röntgen discovered the X-rays on November 8, 1895, and this date has been reproduced consistently in the radiological literature. However, Röntgen himself neither published any detail related to his discovery nor took notice of Dam's assertion. Dam's alleged date has never been certified by any source. When one considers Dam's unsavory background dating from his San Francisco and London sojourns and his misleading of Röntgen - combined with Röntgen's disdain for the press and his lifelong silence on the topic - the well-founded suspicion is raised that the journalist obtained no date from the physicist. Instead, the unscrupulous reporter likely added a date of his own speculation aiming for a deliberate journalistic impact. The innovative in-depth examination of Dam's past and the transcript of Röntgen's interview strongly supports our conclusion. November 8 is incompatible with Röntgen's indirect indications and Zehnder's calendar calculation.

The second-hand quality of the date reported and the one-time publication of November 8 as the date of the discovery of X-rays by a journalist with a criminal background and a history of unethical professional behavior, cannot be verifiably confirmed. An individual's isolated testimony does not meet the criteria of historic fact.

The date of November 8, 1895, lacks proof of historical authenticity.

· Monville J-F, Dondelinger RF. Professor Röntgen and "Jack the Ripper": Were X-rays Discovered on November 8? Rofo 2026; DOI 10.1055/a-2932-6244.