Definition:Octonion/Historical Note
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Historical Note on Octonions
The octonions were discovered by John Thomas Graves in December $1843$, in the wake of the work he did with William Rowan Hamilton on the quaternions.
However, he never made it into print, and it was Arthur Cayley who published his own work on octonions in $1845$, hence claiming the credit.
Graves' precedent was discovered in $1847$ on the evidence of a letter he had written to Hamilton on the occasion of his initial discovery of them.