The document discusses the historical development of atomic models from Thomson's "plum pudding" model to Rutherford's discovery of the nuclear model based on his alpha particle scattering experiments. It then describes Bohr's model of the hydrogen atom which explained the origin of spectral lines by quantizing angular momentum and energy levels. The Bohr model had both successes in explaining phenomena like the Rydberg equation but also failures that required new quantum mechanics to fully explain atomic structure.