In 1850, Dmitri Mendeleev undertook an incredible journey, walking nearly a thousand miles to Moscow to apply for admission to the University of Moscow. Despite his efforts, he was not accepted. Undeterred, Mendeleev continued on to St. Petersburg, where he was ultimately admitted to the university.

Mendeleev’s education in St. Petersburg proved to be transformative. His studies in chemistry and physics would later culminate in one of his most significant contributions to science: the development of the periodic table of elements. Mendeleev's periodic table, published in 1869, organized the known elements based on their atomic mass and properties, and it provided a framework for understanding chemical behavior. His work has had a lasting impact on the field of chemistry and is considered foundational to the way we understand elements and their relationships today.