Element 85 is called astatine, from the Greek astatos, meaning "unstable," because astatine _is_ unstable (of course all other elements having a nuclear charge number greater than 84 are unstable, too). Astatine was first made at Berkeley by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles, which produced astatine and released two neutrons. The element has since been found in nature as a small constituent of the natural decay of actinium.
The last of the original 92 elements to be discovered was element 87, francium. It was identified in 1939 by French scientist Marguerite Perey.
Children have a game in which they pile blocks up to see how high they can go before they topple over. In medieval times, petty rulers in their Italian states vied with one another to see who could build the tallest tower. Some beautiful results of this game still remain in Florence, Siena, and other Italian hill cities. Currently, Americans vie in a similar way with the wheelbase and overall length of their cars. After 1934, the game among scientists took the form of seeing who could extend the length of the periodic system of the elements; as with medieval towers, it was Italy that again began with the most enthusiasm and activity under the leadership of Enrico Fermi.
Merely adding neutrons would not be enough; that would make only a heavier isotope of the already known heaviest elements, uranium. However, if the incoming neutron caused some rearrangement within the nucleus and if it were accompanied by expulsion of electrons, that _would_ make a new element. Trials by Fermi and his co-workers with various elements led to unmistakeable evidence of the expulsion of electrons (beta activity) with at least four different rates of decay (half-lives). Claims were advanced for the creation of elements 93 and 94 and possibly further (the transuranium elements, Table I). Much difficulty was experienced, however, in proving that the activity really was due to the formation of elements 93 and 94. As more people became interested and extended the scope of the experiments, the picture became more confused rather than clarified. Careful studies soon showed that the activities did _not_ decay logarithmically--which means that they were caused by mixtures, not individual pure substances--and the original four activities reported by Fermi grew to at least nine.