Eli5 why is aluminium not used as a material until relatively recently whilst others metals like gold, iron, bronze, tin are found throughout human history?

Question

Eli5 why is aluminium not used as a material until relatively recently whilst others metals like gold, iron, bronze, tin are found throughout human history?

In: 7474

Answer 1

There is an aluminum pyramid at the tippy top of the Washington monument, construcfed in 1884. They put it there because aluminum was incredibly rare and incredibly expensive at the time. More so than even gold. We didn’t figure out till a few years *after* that how to reliably extract it from the earth in a usable form.