German physicist Wilhelm Rontgen made a dramatic discovery for which he could not give a name on November 8, 1895.

Instead, he used a placeholder letter for the type of ray he had discovered - X-ray.

The X symbolises the unknown.

Rontgen was investigating electron beams in a vacuum tube that day when he noticed a fluorescent screen on the other side of the room glowing.

He began placing objects in the apparent path of the invisible ray to see what would stop it.

But as he did so, he saw his own skeleton projected onto the screen.

Rontgen had accidentally discovered a way of seeing inside the human body without even breaking the skin.

Six weeks later, he took a photograph of his wife's hand in the path of the X-ray.

When it showed the bones under her skin, she exclaimed in shock: "I

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