How were atomic numbers exactly determined?

[ViolentCorpse]

Pardon my ignorance please, but they never taught us about that in school. I've never seen any mention in any of the chemistry/physics/electronics textbooks that I've ever read about how the atomic numbers of each element were empirically found in the first place. I understand it has something to do with Moseley's law, but how exactly does that help determine the number of protons an atom contains?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Does wiki help?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_number

 

[JohnRC]

Moseley's paper (1913) is reproduced here

http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/Moseley-article.html

Says it all!

 

[ViolentCorpse]

Oh wow. Thank you so much, JohnRC! And you too Greg Bernhardt. I had already read the wiki article on it, but I wanted a little more detailed account (However, I just found that Moseley's paper is cited in the wiki page. I feel bad for that).

Thanks, again guys! :)