A Personal Perspective on the Organometallic Chemistry of the Rare-Earth and Actinide Metals in Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the American Chemical Society

We are honored to be asked to write a review for Organometallics on (a) how organometallic chemistry of the rare-earth metals (Ln = Sc, Y, and the lanthanides) and the actinide metals (An) got to its current state, (b) where it is going, and (c) how this journal contributed to this development. Organometallics was started in 1982 when the investigation of Ln and An organometallic chemistry was greatly accelerating. This journal has provided an excellent platform to present the new Ln and An chemistry in detail and has been instrumental in advancing the field by publishing more than 1000 papers in this area. What follows is a very personal perspective on topics (a)-(c) above. This is not a comprehensive review since many more detailed reviews are already in the literature. We realize that not all researchers in the area might agree with the emphasis and we apologize if we have left out material that should have been included.