History of science

Famous Scientists and their place in History

  • Aug 3, 1492

    Columbus sets sail

    Columbus sets sail
    On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships: the Santa María, the Pinta and the Santa Clara, nicknamed the Niña.
  • Jun 21, 1540

    Coronado

    Coronado
    Francisco Vásquez de Coronado is authorized to conquer the Southwest.
  • Dec 1, 1542

    Copernicus publishes heliocentric theory

    Copernicus publishes heliocentric theory
    De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) is the seminal work on the heliocentric theory of the Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543). The book, first printed in 1543 in Nuremberg, Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, offered an alternative model of the universe to Ptolemy's geocentric system, which had been widely accepted since ancient times.
  • Feb 15, 1564

    Galileo born

    Galileo born
    Galileo Galiliei, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. Born February 15, 1564 in Pisa, Italy
  • Jamestown Settlement

    Jamestown Settlement
    Jamestown was the first successful English settlement on the mainland of North America. Named for King James I of England, Jamestown was founded in the Colony of Virginia on May 14, 1607.
  • Galileo's telescope

    Galileo's telescope
    On 25 August 1609, Galileo demonstrated one of his early telescopes, with a magnification of about 8 or 9, to Venetian lawmakers.
  • Galileo discovers the moons of Jupiter

    Galileo discovers the moons of Jupiter
    Galilean_moons
    On January 7, 1610, Galileo wrote a letter containing the first mention of Jupiter’s moons. At the time, he saw only three of them, and he believed them to be fixed stars near Jupiter. He continued to observe these celestial orbs from January 8 to March 2, 1610. In these observations, he discovered a fourth body, and also observed that the four were not fixed stars, but rather were orbiting Jupiter.
  • Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock

    Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock
    MayflowerOn this day in 1620, William Bradford and the Pilgirms landed at Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
  • Galileo dies

    Galileo dies
    Died January 8, 1642, Arcetri, Italy
  • Newton born

    Newton born
    Isaac Newton was born in the hamlet of Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England. During Newton's lifetime, two calendars were in use in Europe: the Julian ("Old Style") calendar in Protestant & Orthodox regions, including Britain; and the Gregorian ("New Style") calendar in Roman Catholic Europe. At Newton's birth, Gregorian dates were ten days ahead of Julian dates: thus his birth is recorded as taking place on 25 December 1642 OS, but can be converted to NS 1/4/1643
  • The Great Plague

    The Great Plague
    Plague had been around in England for centuries but in 1665 the so-called Great Plague hit the country - though it was Stuart London that took the worst of the plague. The plague was only finally brought under control in 1666 when the Great Fire of London burned down the areas most affected by plague – the city slums inhabited by the poor. Stuart England was never free from the plague but 1665 saw the worst.
  • Start of the Great Fire of London

    Start of the Great Fire of London
    The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. It is credited with ending the Great Plague.
  • Newton publishes the Principia Mathematica

    Newton publishes the Principia Mathematica
    The Principia states Newton's laws of motion, forming the foundation of classical mechanics, also Newton's law of universal gravitation, and a derivation of Kepler's laws of planetary motion (which Kepler first obtained empirically). The Principia is "justly regarded as one of the most important works in the history of science"
  • Newton dies

    Newton dies
    Newton died in his sleep in London on 20 March 1727 (OS 20 March 1726; NS 31 March 1727) The New Style Gregorian calendar is the one we use today.
  • Lamarck born

    Lamarck born
    Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
    Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, often known simply as Lamarck, was born August 1, 1744, Bazentin, France
  • Start of American War of Independence

  • Period: to

    American War of Independence

    American Revolutionary War
    April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783
  • Lamarck proposes his theory of evolution

    Lamarck proposes his theory of evolution
    Lamarck was the first to develop a truly coherent evolutionary theory. He outlined his theories regarding evolution first in his Floreal lecture of 1800, and then in three later published works:
    Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivants, 1802.
    Philosophie Zoologique, 1809.
    Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres, (in seven volumes, 1815–1822).
  • Darwin born

    Darwin born
    Charles Robert Darwin was born 12 February 1809 at The Mount, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, United Kingdom
  • Mendel born

    Mendel born
    Gregor Johann Mendel was a German-speaking Silesian scientist and Augustinian friar who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the new science of genetics. He was born on July 20, 1822, Hynčice, Czech Republic
  • Lamarck dies

    Lamarck dies
    December 18, 1829, Paris, France
  • Darwin departs on the HMS Beagle

    Darwin departs on the HMS Beagle
  • Period: to

    The Voyage of the Beagle

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Beagle HMS Beagle surveys the coastline of South America. This voyage is where Darwin begins to form his Theory of Descent with Modification (AKA Natural Selection)
  • Mendeleev born

    Mendeleev born
    Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was a Russian chemist and inventor. He formulated the Periodic Law, created his own version of the periodic table of elements, and used it to correct the properties of some already discovered elements and also to predict the properties of elements yet to be discovered.
  • Period: to

    Mendel studies pea heredity

  • Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species

    Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species
  • Start of American Civil War

  • Period: to

    American Civil War

    Civil War
    April 12, 1861 – May 9, 1865 (by declaration)
    (Duration: 4 years, 3 weeks and 6 days)
    (last shot fired June 22, 1865)
  • Mendeleev presents his Periodic Table

    Mendeleev presents his Periodic Table
    On 6 March 1869, Mendeleev made a formal presentation to the Russian Chemical Society, entitled The Dependence between the Properties of the Atomic Weights of the Elements, which described elements according to both atomic weight and valence
  • Darwin dies

    Darwin dies
    Darwin dies 19 April 1882 (aged 73) at Down House, Downe, Kent, United Kingdom
  • Mendel dies

    Mendel dies
    January 6, 1884, Brno, Czech Republic
  • Mendeleev dies

    Mendeleev dies
    In 1907, Mendeleev died at the age of 72 in Saint Petersburg from influenza. The crater Mendeleev on the Moon, as well as element number 101, the radioactive mendelevium, are named after him.
  • Start of WW I

    Start of WW I
  • Period: to

    WW I

    WW I
    28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918
  • Franklin born

    Franklin born
    Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born July 25, 1920, Notting Hill, United Kingdom She was a British biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer who made critical contributions to the understanding of the fine molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite.
  • Period: to

    Mendelian genetics combined with Darwin's theory

    The combination, in the 1930s and 1940s, of Mendelian genetics with Darwin's theory of natural selection resulted in the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology.
  • Start of WW II

    Start of WW II
  • Period: to

    WW II

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
    1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945
  • Sputnik launched

    Sputnik launched
    Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was a 58 cm (23 in) diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennae to broadcast radio pulses. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. It was visible all around the Earth and its radio pulses detectable. The surprise success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis, began the Space Age and triggered the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War.
  • Franklin dies

    Franklin dies
    Franklin died of ovarian cancer April 16, 1958, Chelsea, London, United Kingdom
  • Watson, Crick & Wilkins awarded Nobel prize

    Watson, Crick & Wilkins awarded Nobel prize
    The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962 was awarded jointly to Francis Harry Compton Crick, James Dewey Watson and Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material".
  • Assassination of JFK

    Assassination of JFK
    Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas.
  • Assassination of MLK Jr.

    Assassination of MLK Jr.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39.