The document discusses the history and development of the periodic table. It describes early periodic tables from the 1800s with fewer than 40 known elements arranged based on atomic mass. John Newlands proposed the law of octaves but it only worked for the first few elements. Dmitri Mendeleev arranged elements in a periodic way with gaps for undiscovered elements and was able to predict properties. The modern periodic table arranges elements by atomic number and groups them based on electron configuration in the outer shell leading to similar properties within groups. It also discusses trends in reactivity down groups and across periods.