Tungsten/wolfram: A little-known connection between the 18th century Basque Country and SOFT 2014 in Donostia/San Sebastián

This paper is intended as a preface of the special issue that Fusion Engineering and Design will devote to the best papers presented in the Symposium on Fusion Technology, 2014 (SOFT 2014) that took place in Donostia/San Sebastián. It is a historical note dwelling on the largely unknown story of the isolation of tungsten/wolfram in Spain, more precisely, in the Basque Country, very close to Donostia/San Sebastián, in the late 18th century. Given the current strategic importance of tungsten in the development of fusion as a viable energy source we think it is timely to recall the protagonists and the circumstances involved in the isolation of this metal.