Well, smack my face and call me Sally! Bill and Helen! This is pretty exciting stuff you've opened up! I searched plumbum and galena and found some pretty easy reading, some of which I'll paste here:

What's in a name? From the Anglo-Saxon word lead. Lead's chemical symbol comes from the Latin word for lead, plumbum.


Say what? Lead is pronounced as LED.


History and Uses:
Lead has been known since ancient times. It is sometimes found free in nature, but is usually obtained from the ores galena (PbS), anglesite (PbSO4), cerussite (PbCO3) and minum (Pb3O4). Although lead makes up only about 0.0013% of the earth's crust, it is not considered to be a rare element since it is easily mined and refined. Most lead is obtained by roasting galena in hot air, although nearly one third of the lead used in the United States is obtained through recycling efforts.

Lead is a soft, malleable and corrosion resistant material. The ancient Romans used lead to make water pipes, some of which are still in use today. Unfortunately for the ancient Romans, lead is a cumulative poison and the decline of the Roman empire has been blamed, in part, on lead in the water supply. Lead is used to line tanks that store corrosive liquids, such as sulfuric acid (H2SO4). Lead's high density makes it useful as a shield against X-ray and gamma-ray radiation and is used in X-ray machines and nuclear reactors


Very interesting reading about the connection between plumbers and lead-lined pipes, Helen! Will never look at the word plumber the same way again.

There was also this on the same site:

Several lead alloys are widely used. Solder, an alloy that is nearly half lead and half tin, is a material with a relatively low melting point that is used to join electrical components, pipes and other metallic items. Type metal, an alloy of lead, tin and antimony, is a material used to make the type used in printing presses and plates. Babbit metal, another lead alloy, is used to reduce friction in bearings.

.....

Lead nitrate (Pb(NO3)2) is used to make fireworks and other pyrotechnics.
http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele082.html

Plumbum tuckered out,
Wordwinded

PS: Please let me know whether the url I listed created any kind of problem for the wide pages I've been reading about. Don't want to cause a problem and will do whatever I need to do to make the correction