Why are calcium carbonate and carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide considered inorganic compounds?
"The name "organic" is a historical name, dating back to 19th century, when it was believed that organic compounds could only be synthesized in living organisms by vis vitalis - the "life-force". The theory that organic compounds were fundamentally dissimilar from those that were "inorganic", that is, not synthesized by a life-force, was disproved with the synthesis of urea, an "organic" compound by definition of its called as occurrence only in the urine of living organisms, from potassium cyanate and ammonium sulfate by Friedrich Wöhler in the Wöhler synthesis.