The fossils and bones of the dinosaurs have been known for thousands of years although they were not studied until the XIX century.
The chinese refer to them as 'dragon bones' and in the England in the XVII century when a large bone was found in a quarry they though that belonged to a giant human, similar to those described in the Bible.
Finally in the early years of the XIX Rev William Buckland, a professor of Geology at Oxford University collected bones of Megalosaurus and wrote the first theories abot their existence in a scientific journal.
In 1822 Mary Ann Mantell, wife of english geologist Gideon Mantell, found what they thought was the teeth of a extinct iguana. Gideon published his investigation about what they called the Iguanodon in 1825.
European and American investigators soon became interested in these new findings and in 1842 the British geologist Sir Richard Owen gave this group of ancient creatures the name of Dinosaurs, that means 'Terrible Lizard'.