How was mercury oxide discovered?

How was mercury oxide discovered?

Mercury oxide was discovered by the French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavosier during his experiments with the element oxygen. Oxygen was discovered in 1774 by Priestly. It was also discovered at about the same time by the Swedish scientist Scheele who called it ‘empyreal’ or ‘fire air’. But Lavosier gave the element its modern name – oxygen.

In addition to repeating the experiment conducted by Priestly, Lavosier carryout out several of his own. In one such experiment, he showed that mercury heated in small amount of oxygen was transformed into a red powder which he called mercury oxide.