The document summarizes several historical models of the atom:
1. J.J. Thomson's "plum pudding" model which depicted the atom as a positively charged sphere with electrons embedded within it.
2. Ernest Rutherford's gold foil experiment led him to propose the nuclear model with electrons orbiting a small, dense nucleus.
3. Niels Bohr built on this model by incorporating quantum theory to explain electrons occupying discrete energy levels as they orbit the nucleus.
4. Finally, Erwin Schrodinger developed the probabilistic "cloud" model where an electron's location is expressed as a probability distribution or cloud rather than a definite orbit.