the true discoverer of string theory was....
Yoichiro Nambu

alternatives
>Veniziano
nope, he didn’t know his formula for the scattering amplitude was stringy, and he stuck with the dual resonance (based on harmonic oscillators not strings) interpretation for a while after Nambu et al
>Susskind
nope, he came after Nambu and was less clear than Nambu
>Nielsen
came before susskind and after nambu, but his idea wasn’t even a string, it was like a “fishnet” version of a ladder diagram which missed the string world sheet picture