Zorn's Lemma/Historical Note

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Historical Note on Zorn's Lemma

Zorn's Lemma was published by Max August Zorn in $1935$.

However, it had previously been reported by Kazimierz Kuratowski in $1922$, in a slightly different (and simpler) form.

Hence this result is sometimes known as the Kuratowski-Zorn Lemma.

Zorn himself fully acknowledged Kuratowski in his own publication of this result.

He was apparently somewhat embarrassed to have had it named after him, rather than Kuratowski.

Kuratowski himself had not attached any particular importance to it, considering it a straightforward corollary of Hausdorff's Maximal Principle.