Who among the following first discovered cell ?

The correct answer is B, Robert Hooke. In 1665 Hooke looked at a thin slice of cork under his self-made microscope, saw tiny box-like compartments and named them cells, from the Latin word cella, meaning a small room. He described this in his book Micrographia. What Hooke actually saw were the empty walls of dead cork cells, but his observation began the study of cells. Later scientists built on it: Schleiden and Schwann proposed the cell theory in 1838–39, saying all plants and animals are made of cells. Option A is wrong because Robert Brown discovered the nucleus of the cell in 1831, which came after Hooke. Option C is wrong because Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was the first to see free-living cells such as bacteria and protozoa in 1674, nine years after Hooke named the cell. Option D is wrong because Rudolf Virchow added in 1855 that all cells arise from pre-existing cells, a later part of the cell theory. Exam tip: cell – Hooke 1665; living cells – Leeuwenhoek 1674; nucleus – Brown 1831; cell theory – Schleiden and Schwann; omnis cellula e cellula – Virchow.