Pauli exclusion principle by Ciro Santilli 34 Updated Created
Initially a phenomenological guess to explain the periodic table. Later it was apparently proven properly with the spin-statistics theorem, physics.stackexchange.com/questions/360140/theoretical-proof-of-paulis-exclusion-principle.
And it was understood more and more that basically this is what prevents solids from collapsing into a single nucleus, not electrical repulsion: electron degeneracy pressure!
Bibliography:
Video 1.
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 17. Matter by Sean Carroll (2020)
Source.