This is the Age that has led up to the present. It begins around 1600, in which year Kepler went to work for Tycho Brahe and was able to use his observational data to eventually deduce three laws of planetary motion, Gilbert wrote on magnetism, Bacon on scientific method, Galileo and Marius began telescopic observation, discovering the satellites of Jupiter, and the church executed Bruno for heresies arising from his musings on the consequences of the Copernican system. Greater detail will be found in the pages on individual sciences. This age includes the development of the mechanics of Newton, and its later half sees the steam power of the industrial revolution, and the evolutionary revolution in biology of Darwin and Wallace.
Colour coding: red = mathematics, astronomy, physics orange = materials, chemistry, geology, engineering, architecture yellow = biology, medicine, exploration, anthropology, psychology green = visual art, printing blue = literature, poetry, music mauve = history, philosophy, metaphysics, theology grey = wars, politics, events (indented)
1600: Kepler inherits the observational data of Tycho Brahe and in subsequent years uses them to formulate his three laws of planetary motion.
1600: Oyo empire in W. Africa begins to flourish.
1601 - 1665 Pierre de Fermat number theorist, and pioneer of calculus methods. W
1602 - 1618: Persia at war with Ottoman empire.
1602 - 1675 Gilles Roberval mathematician, founding member of the Academie Royale des Sciences, Paris 1666, made contributions to development of calculus Traité des indivisibles, but not published until 1693. M W M
1602 - 1676 Pietro Francesco Cavali, music composer.
1603 - 1674 Giacomo Carissimi, music composer.
1606: Willem Jansz is first European to sight Australia.
1606 - 1669 Rembrandt van Rijn, painter, The Night Watch 1642, Self-portraits W @ @ @
1607: Virginia is first English colony in the Americas.
1616 Attacks on the ideas of Copernicus reached a head, and Galileo went to Rome to try to persuade Catholic Church authorities not to issue a ban, but a decree of the Congregation of the Index was issued, declaring that the ideas that the Sun stood still and that the Earth moved were "false" and "altogether contrary to Holy Scripture", and suspending Copernicus's De Revolutionibus until it could be corrected.
1616 - 1703 John Wallis Arithmetica Infinitorum 1656. M
1618 - 1648: Thirty Years War
1619: Dutch empire established in East Indies.
1622 first graphite pencil made.
1623 - 1662 Blaise Pascal, mathematician and theologian Pensees @ M W
1623 - 1669 Antonio Cesti, musician.
1624: New Amsterdam (New York) founded by Dutch.
1625 - 1712 Giovanni Cassini, astronomer, director of the Paris observatory. W M
1625 - 1682 Johann J. Becher, mistaken 'fatty earth' (phlogiston) theory. W
1626 - 1697 Francesco Redi showed maggots hatch from egg-laying flies 1668.
1627 - 1691 Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist 1661. @ S W M @ @
1627 - 1703 John Ray naturalist. W
1629 - 1695 Christian Huygens, 1656 Discovers the rings and a moon of Saturn 1656, 1673 Horologium Oscillatorium, 1690 Treatise on Light. @ W M
1630 - 1677 Isaac Barrow. First Lucasian Professor of mathematics. Friend of John Ray and tutor of Isaac Newton. W
1631 - 1700 John Dryden, Absalom amd Achitophel political satire.
1632 - 1723 Antoni van Leeuwenhoek microscopist. B
1632 - 1687 Jean Baptiste Lully, musician.
1632 - 1704 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, philosopher of empiricism and democracy. S I W @ @
1635 - 1703 Robert Hooke, microscopist and architect. B
c.1637 - 1707 Dietrich Buxterhude, musician, organist.
1638 - 1686 Niels Stensen aka Nicolaus Steno Prodromus 1669, recognised that fossil shells in rock strata must have been laid down on the seabed, and that lower levels without fossils must predate the existence of life. @
1642: Abel Tasman lands on Tasmania and Tonga and sights New Zealand.
1642 - 1648: English Civil War.
1642 mezzotint invented by Ludwig von Siegen.
1642 - 1727 Isaac Newton Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy 1687, in which he was able to deduce Kepler's laws from general principles of mechanics and gravitation, which he applied in Euclid's infinite space. This was the predominant picture of the universe for the next 250 years. @ @ M W @ @
1644 (to 1911): Manchus conquer China and establish Qing dynasty.
1644 - 1710 Ole Roemer from observation of the Moons of Jupiter, discovers the finite speed of light. W
1645 - 1704 Marc-Antoine Charpentier, musician.
1646 - 1716 Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz philosopher and mathematician, calculus. W M S
1649 - 1708 John Blow, musician.
1652 - 1674: Anglo-Dutch Wars.
Cape Town, S. Africa, founded by Dutch East India Company.
1653 - 1713 Archangelo Corelli, musician.
1654 - 1705 Jacob Bernoulli mathematician. M
1656 - 1742 Edmond Halley 1687 Persuaded Newton to publish the Principia and saw it into print, 1682 observed the comet named after him, and traced its earlier appearances in historical records 1531 and 1607, and used Newtonian mechanics to predict its return in 1758-9. M
1659 - 1695 Henry Purcell composer Dido and Aeneas. @ @ W
1660: Foundation of the Royal Society by Wren, Hooke, Boyle and others.
Romer, from observation of the Moons of Jupiter, discovers the finite speed of light.
1660 - 1725 Alessandro Scarlatti, musician.
fl.1660 Thomas Ady A Candle in the Dark
W
And other Humanists. Survey of various works of the 1660s against witchcraft and religion.
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1660 - 1743 Georg Ernst Stahl mistaken phlogiston theory. W @
1665 - 1721 R. J. Camerarius studied plant pollination 1694.
1666 - 1747 Jean-Fery Rebel, composer, 1737 Les Elements Y
1667 - 1729 Thomas Fairchild 1720 discovered plant hybridisation.
1667 - 1748 Johann Bernoulli mathematician, brother of Jacob and father of Daniel. M
1668 - 1733 Francois Couperin, musician.
1670-1733 Charles Snell 1712 The Art of Writing copperplate, italic, fraktur etc typography, calligraphy. @
1671 - 1751 T. G. Albinoni, musician.
c.1674 - 1707 Jeremiah Clarke, musician.
1678 - 1741 Antonio Vivaldi, musician, composer.
1681 - 1767 G. P. Telemann, musician, composer.
1683 - 1764 Jean-Philippe Rameau, musician, composer.
1684-1758 George Bickham 1733 Universal Penman English round hand. Copper plate. W
1685 - 1750 Johann Sebastian Bach, musician, composer.
1685 - 1757 Domenico Scarlatti, musician, composer.
1685 - 1759 Georg Frideric Handel, musician, composer.
1685 - 1731 Brook Taylor 1715 Methodus Incrementorum, Taylor's series for f(x + h). M M
1687. New mathematical methods, including differential and integral calculus, are developed by Fermat, Newton, Leibniz and others. Isaac Newton applies the new mathematics to deduce Kepler's laws from the law of gravitational attraction.
1688 - 1744 Alexander Pope, poet, Essay on Man.
1689: Ashanti confederacy founded by Osei Tutu.
1692-1766 William Caslon, typefounder, 1722 Caslon Old Face. W
1693 - 1776 John Harrison Clockmaker whose accurate chronometers solved the longitude problem. W
1694 - 1778 Francois-Marie Arouet, aka Voltaire writer, campaigner and philosopher. W
1697 - 1764 William Hogarth, engraver
1698 - 1746 Colin Maclaurin, Treatise of Fluxions 1742, Maclaurin's series. M
1699: Australia named New Britain by English expedition (??)
1700 - 1800: Civil War in Easter Island (??)
1700 - 1782 Daniel Bernoulli mathematician, fluid dynamics. M
1702 - 1713: War of the Spanish Succession.
1707: Union of England and Scotland.
1707 - 1775 John Baskerville, printer, typographer, 1748 Baskerville typeface. 1757 edition of Virgil. W
1707 - 1778 Carl von Linné aka Carolus Linnaeus, 1735 Systema Natura introduced the two-part name system of genus and species for any plant or animal. @
1707 - 1783 Leonhard Euler mathematician. M W
1707 -1788 Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, 1749, 1781 Natural History W B
1710 - 1778 Thomas Arne, composer, music to song Rule Brittannia.
1710 - 1736 Giovanni Pergolesi, musician.
1710 - 1784 Wilhelm Friedrich Bach, musician.
1711 - 1779 William Boyce, musician.
1711 - 96 Alexandre Pingré, observed the first predicted return of Halley's Comet 1759.
1712 - 1778 Jean-Jacques Rousseau writer and philosopher. W I @ @
1714 - 1787 C. W. Gluck, musician.
1714 - 1788 C. P. E. Bach, musician.
1717 - 1757 J. W. Stamitz, musician.
1718 - 1783 Adam F. Kollar, inventor of the term "ethnology" 1783 as "the science of nations and peoples". W
1719 Le Blond patents 3-colour engraving.
1720 - 1778 Giovanni Piranesi, architect.
1720 - 1790 Nicolas de Launay, engraver
1725 - 1809 Paul Sandby, typographer
1726 - 1797 James Hutton Theory of the Earth 1785, maintained there were cycles of geological activity, known for the saying "No vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end". @ M W
1727 - 1815 Francesco Bartolozzi, etcher
1728 - 1777 Johann Heinrich Lambert Polymath. Mathematics: introduced hyperbolic functions in trigonometry, proved irrationality of pi, geometry of curved surfaces, theory of map projections. Physics: invented a practical hygrometer, expressed laws of illumination 1760 Photometria, Beer-Lambert law of light absorption, published a version of the nebular hypothesis of origin of the solar system. Psychology: coined the term 'phenomenology', considered how to distinguish subjective and objective experiences, developed syllogistic logic 1764 New Organon. W M @ @ @
1728 - 1779 James Cook explorer (statue on Mall near Admiralty Arch). @ @ W @
1728 - 1793 John Hunter surgeon. @
1728 - 1799 Joseph Black, carbon dioxide. W
1729 - 1799 Lazzaro Spallanzani microscopist 1765. @
1730 - 1817 Charles Messier published a catalogue of 110 non-stellar objects, now known to be galaxies, nebulae and star clusters, to avoid them being confused with comets.
1731 - 1810 Henry Cavendish, experimenter, isolated hydrogen, measured gravitation. W @
1732 - 1809 Franz Josef Haydn, musician, composer, 104 symphonies, string quartets.
1732 - 1811 Nevil Maskelyne 5th Astronomer Royal, 5th Astronomer Royal. W
1733 china clay filler in papermaking introduced
1733 - 1804 Joseph Priestley, oxygen. W
1735 - 1782 Johann Christian Bach, musician, composer, "The London Bach".
1736: Nadir Shah seizes throne of Persia from Safavids.
1736 - 1796: Chinese empire under Qianlong expands to include Tibet, Mongolia, Turkestan, Annam, Burma and Nepal.
1736 - 1813 Joseph-Louis Lagrange mathematician. M
1737 - 1798 Luigi Galvani, animal electricity. W @
1738 - 1822 William Herschel, musician turned astronomer who ground lenses and built telescopes; 1781 discovered a new planet in the solar system, which he called Georgium Sidum after his patron the king, later named Uranus.
1739 - 1785 Joseph Marie Degerando The Observation of Savage Peoples anthropology. W @
1740 - 1748: War of the Austrian Succession.
1740 - 1813 Giambattista Bodoni printer, publisher, typographer, 1788 Bodoni typeface. W
1740 - 1814 Donatien de Sade aka Marquis de Sade @
1740 - 1795 William Smellie The Philosophy of Natural History 1791. W
1742 - 1786 Carl Wilhelm Scheele W @ @
1743 - 1794 Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, correct theory of combustion, oxygen. W @
1743 - 1805 Luigi Boccherini, musician, composer.
1743 - 1820 Joseph Banks botanist, explorer and scientific administrator. @
1744 - 1829 Jean Baptiste Lamarck, 1809 Philosophie Zoologique a theory of evolution by acquired characteristics. B W @ @ @
1745 - 1827 Alessandro Volta, electric 'pile' battery. W @
1746 - 1794 William Jones. Orientalist and philologist who studied Sanscrit and showed its relationship to Latin and Greek. Worked as a jurist in Bengal. Wrote on 'Caissa' the muse of chess.
1746 - 1823 Jacques Charles 1783 made the first manned hydrogen balloon flight with N-L. Robert, 1787 did experiments showing expansion of gas proportional to absolute temperature, Charles' Law. W
1746 - 1828 Francisco de Goya painter The Third of May, The Sleep of Reason. @
1747 - 1826 Johann Bode took up an empirical law postulated by Titius, and still not explained, inter-relating the planetary distances, suggesting a missing planet between Mars and Jupiter, where the asteroids were found.
1748 - 1819 John Playfair 1802 Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth. W
1748 - 1832 Jeremy Bentham, philosopher of utilitarianism, 1789 Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1824 Handbook of Political Fallacies. @ @
1749 - 1827 Pierre-Simon Laplace, Mecanique Celeste, developed the mathematics of Newtonian physics, and applied the theory to the solar system. M @ W
1750 - 1816 C. K. Sprengel plant pollination by insects. W @
1750 - 1825 Antonio Salieri, musician.
1751 - 1819 Samuel Stanhope Smith 1787 On Variety in the Human Species, anthropology. W
1752 - 1824 Janinet engraver
1752 - 1840 Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, On the Natural Variety of Mankind, anthropology.
1753 - 1828 Thomas Bewick illustrator
1756 - 1763: Seven Years War
1756 - 1791 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, musician composer.
1756 - 1829 Francis Henry Egerton aka Eighth Earl of Bridgewater, whose will sponsored the eight Bridgewater Tteatises supporting natural theology, published by the Royal Society 1833-1840. W N V
1756 - 1827 Rowlandson caricaturist
1756 - 1827 Ernst Chladni, scientist who studied meteorites, transmission of sound, and the patterns produced on vibrating plates. W
1757: Battle of Plassey. British control much of India
1757 - 1827 William Blake, poet, etcher.
1759 The first predicted return of Halley's Comet. Observed by Pingré (see 1711).
1760 - 1842 Luigi Cherubini, musician.
1761 - 1832 James Hall geology of volcanic rocks. W
1764 - 1786 John Goodricke observes variable stars including delta Cephei and Algol, theorises that the latter is a binary star. W
1766 - 1834 Thomas Robert Malthus, 1798 Essay on the Principle of Population W B @ @ @ @ F @ @
1766 - 1844 John Dalton, 1808 A New System of Chemical Philosophy, atomic theory. @ @ W @
1769 - 1821 Napoleon Bonaparte soldier and statesman. W
1769 - 1832 Georges Cuvier, 1827-35 The Animal Kingdom, comparative anatomy. B @
1769 - 1839 William Smith. 1815 first Geological Map of England and Wales. B @
1769 - 1852 Arthur Wellesley aka Duke of Wellington. soldier and statesman. W
1769 - 1859 Alexander von Humboldt explorer and naturalist. W @ @ @ @ @ @
1770 - 1827 Ludwig van Beethoven, musician, composer, 9 symphonies.
1770 - 1847 Alexandre Brongniart geologist. W
1772 - 1834 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel. @ @
1772 - 1844 Etienne Geoffroy St Hilaire ideas on evolution. B
1772 - 1853 Charles Caldwell, physician, 1852 Original Unity of Human Race W
1773 - 1829 Thomas Young, 1803 carried out double-slit experiment on light showing interference supporting the wave theory, 1807 studied the ratio of stress to strain in various materials, now known as Young's modulus. 1814 partially deciphered the demotic inscription on the Rosetta Stone. W
1773 - 1852 Aimé Bonpland explorer and naturalist (Humboldt expedition 1799). W @ @
1774 - 1836 William Henry chemist who 1803 studied effects of pressure on absorption of gases, Henry's Law, 1799 Elements of Experimental Chemistry, one of the founders of the Manchester Mechanics Institute that became UMIST. W
1774 - 1857 Francis Beaufort hydrographer of the British Admiralty 1829-54, meteorologist, originated the Beaufort wind scale. W
1774 - 1862 Jean-Baptiste Biot, scientist who studied meteorites, polarized light and electro-magnetism. Developed the Biot-Savart law for magnetic fields near conductors. W W @ @ W
1775 - 1851 J.M.W. Turner, painter
c.1775: Beginning of Industrial Revolution
1775 - 1783: American revolution, 1776: US declaration of independence
1776 - 1786: Fulani Emirates founded (??)
1776 - 1841 George Birkbeck, Founder of mechanics institutes. @ @
1778 - 1829 Humphry Davy electro-chemistry. W @ @ @
1778 - 1837 Johann Nepomuk Hummel, musician composer.
1778 - 1850 Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, physical chemist who studied reaction of gases under changing temperature and pressure. @ 3@ W
1778 - 1856 John Collins Warren, 1822 Nervous Systems in Man and Animals.
1778 - 1868 Henry Brougham educational reformer. W
1779 - 1848 Jons Jacob Berzelius, chemical notation. W @ @ @
1781 - 1840 Simeon Poisson mathematician whose studies covered a wide range, particularly in statistics; Poisson distribution W M W
1781 - 1868 David Brewster Experimental physicist who studied the properties of light refraction and polarisation in crystals. 1815 invented the kaleidoscope. 1831 One of the founders of the British Association for Advancement of Science. 1849 invented an improved stereoscope using prisms. W
1780 first steel pen made (superseding the quill pen).
1782 - 1842 Cotman, watercolourist
1782 - 1840 Nicolo Paganini, violin virtuoso, composer.
1784 - 1856 William Buckland geologist and fossil hunter. @ V W @ @
1785 - 1836 Claude-Louis Navier mathematician who applied the theory of elasticity to the analysis of structures, and developed equations of fluid mechanics: 1822 Navier-Stokes equations (see George Stokes 1819). W
1785 - 1838 Pierre Louis Dulong, physical chemist, discovered explosive nature of nitrogen trichloride, work on specific heats led to the Dulong-Petit law W W @
1785 - 1873 Adam Sedgwick geologist. B @
1786 - 1826 Carl Maria von Weber, composer, Die Freischutz.
1786 - 1853 Francois Arago Astronomer, surveyor and optical researcher. W
1787 - 1826 Joseph von Fraunhofer, discovered dark lines in the sun's spectrum. W
1788: New South Wales established as penal colony
1788 - 1827 Augustin-Jean Fresnel Engineer and physicist known for his work on optics. Developed the multipart lenses used in lighthouses. 1821 showed that light was a purely transverse vibration. W
1788 - 1860 Arthur Schopenhauer philosopher, The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason 1813, The World as Will and Representation 1819. W S @
1789: French Revolution begins
1790 - 1830 Jean-Francois Champollion 1822 deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs using the Rosetta Stone, following on from the work by Thomas Young. W
1790 - 1852 Gideon Mantell, fossil hunter. @ W @
1790 - 1874 John Bachman, 1850 Unity of the Human Race.
1791 - 1820 Alexis Therese Petit, Dulong-Petit law of specific heats. W @ @
1791 - 1841 Felix Savart scientist who worked on acoustics and electromagnetism, helped develop the Biot-Savart law to calculate magnetic fields near electrical conductors. W
1791 - 1867 Michael Faraday 1830-55 Experimental Researches in Electricity, 1823-45 Liquefaction of Gases @ @ W @.
1791 - 1871 Charles Babbage inventor of a difference engine, precursor of programmable computers. W
1792 - 1878 George Cruikshank, cartoonist.
1792 - 1868 Gioachino Rossini, opera composer, The Barber of Seville, The Thieving Magpie, William Tell.
1792 - 1871 Roderick Murchison, geologist, Silurian, Permian. W
1792 - 1871 John F. W. Herschel, 1831 Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, 1849 Outlines of Astronomy, mapped the stars of the southern sky from a base in South Africa; coined the term 'photography'. W @
1793 - 1841 George Green miller and mathematician, published 1828 Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism, which developed the general mathematical theory of the potential function, and proved 'Green's Theorem'. M @ Green's WindMill.
1793 - 1874 Robert Edmond Grant anatomist and zoologist, colleague of Darwin in Edinburgh. @ W
1794 - 1866 William Whewell, 1833 coined the term 'scientist', 1837 History of the Inductive Sciences, 1840 Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 1846 Indication of the Creator [Bridgwater Treatise]. S W @
1797 - 1848 Gaetano Donizetti, musician.
1797 - 1869 Jean Poiseuille Hagen-Poiseuille law of fluid flow through pipes, applicable to medical purposes such as blood flow. W @ @
1797 - 1875 Charles Lyell, 1830-1833 Principles of Geology (3 vols), 1873 Antiquity of Man W V @
1797 - 1884 Gotthilf Hagen engineer who studied flow through pipes, arriving at the same law as Poiseuille. W
1797 - 1886 A. J. C. B. de Saint-Venant mathematician who derived the Navier-Stokes equations from more general assumptions, and invented a form of vector algebra at the same time as Grassmann. M
1798 - 1857 August Comte, philosopher of 'positivism', coined the term 'sociology'. @ @ W H
1799 - 1847 Mary Anning, fossil hunter. B W @ @ @
1800 - 1882 Friedrich Wohler synthesis of urea, an organic compound from inorganic materials. W @
1801 - 1835 Vincenzo Bellini, musician.
1801 - 1892 George Airy astronomer royal 1835-81. W
1802 - 1871 Robert Chambers 1844 Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. V W B @
1802 - 1875 Charles Wheatstone Inventor of the concertina and the stereoscope and the playfair cipher. Worked on telegraphy. Developed the Wheatstone Bridge for measurement of electrical resistance. W
1803: Louisiana purchase.
1803 - 1805 Marathas and British fight in India.
1803 - 1869 Hector Berlioz, composer, Symphonie Fantastique.
1803 - 1873 Justus Freiherr von Liebig 1842 Animal Chemistry, 1843 Organic Chemistry, 1855 Agricultural Chemistry. W @
1804 - 1849 Johann Strauss Senior, musician, 1848 Radetsky March.
1804 - 1857 >b>Mikhail Glinka, composer.
1804 - 1873 Josiah C. Nott 1850 Caucasian and Negro Races W
1804 - 1892 Richard Owen comparative anatomist, named 'Dinosaurs', 1827 curator of Hunterian Museum, 1856 a founder of the Natural History Museum, Kensington, 1860 critical review of Darwin's Origin of Species. B W V @
1805 - 1881 Samuel Palmer, painter
1805 - 1859 Alexis de Tocqueville 1835-40 Democracy in America. W @
1805 - 1865 Robert Fitzroy captain of the 'Beagle', navigator, hydrographer, meteorologist. W
1805 - 1869 Thomas Graham chemist who worked on colloid chemistry, dialysis and diffusion, formulated Graham's law of diffusion and effusion of gases. W @
1805 - 1894 Ferdinand de Lesseps diplomat, managing director, 1869 Suez Canal W
1806 - 1873 John Stuart Mill 1843 System of Logic, 1859 On Liberty, 1861 Utilitarianism, 1869 The Subjection of Women. @ @ @ S W
1807 - 1873 Louis Agassiz 1857-62 Natural History of USA, 1869 Darwinism B @ W @
1808 - 1828: Independence movements in South America
1809 - 1847 Felix Mendelssohn, musician, composer, Hebrides Overture.
1809 - 1882 Charles Darwin 1845 Voyage of the Beagle, 1859 Origin of Species. @ G @
1810 - 1849 Frederick Chopin, piano virtuoso, composer.
1810 - 1856 Robert Schumann, composer.
1810 - 1878 Henri Victor Regnault chemist who synthesised chlorinated hydrocarbons, studied properties of steam, developing the science of thermodynamics, and did work on photography. W N
1810 - 1884 Mary Gove Nicholls women's health care reformer, 1874 Water Cure. @
1811 - 1886 Franz Liszt, piano virtuoso, composer.
1811 - 1899 Robert Bunsen, spectrum analysis. W
1813 - 1888 Nathaniel Currier, printer
1813 - 1878 Claude Bernard, scientific method in medicine, 1865 Experimental Medicine N W
1813 - 1883 Richard Wagner, opera composer.
1813 - 1889 J. L. Cabell 1858 Common Origin of Mankind W
1813 - 1901 Giuseppe Verdi, opera composer.
1815: Battle of Waterloo
1815 - 1864 George Boole mathematical logic. M
1817 - 1911 Joseph Dalton Hooker botanist and explorer. @
1818: Marathas and British fight again in India
1818 - 1865 Ignaz Semmelweis physician, improved hospital hygiene, but encountered opposition. W @ @ @
1818 - 1893 Charles Gounod, musician.
1819 - 1880 Jacques Offenbach, musician.
1819 - 1892 Walt Whitman poet, Leaves of Grass 1865. W
1819 - 1896 Clara Schumann, piano virtuoso.
1819 - 1903 George Stokes mathematical physicist who studied fluid mechanics (Navier-Stokes equations , friction, and other questions. Lucasian professor at Cambridge from 1849, and President of the Royal Society 1885-90. W @ M
W1820-1840 development of photography, 1820 "Egyptian", typeface, slab serifs.
1820 - 1893 John Tyndall, physics of atmosphere. W @ V @
1821 - 1895 Johann Joseph Loschmidt, 1865 On the Size of the Air Molecules W @
1822 - 1890 César Franck, musician.
1822 - 1895 Louis Pasteur
1822 - 1911 Francis Galton, studied 'biometrics', and proposed 'eugenics' 1883.
1823 - 1913 Alfred Russel Wallace, naturalist, co-discoverer of "natural selection" 1858 On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type, Correspondence with Darwin, 1869 The Malay Archipelago, 1874 On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, 1900 The Wonderful Century. @ W Y @ V @ @
1824 - 1895 James Merritt Ives, publisher
1824 - 1826: First Anglo-Burmese war
1824 - 1880 Paul Broca, brain surgeon, 1861 The Faculty of Language, 1864 Hybridity in Genus Homo W @ @
1824 - 1884 Bedrich Smetana, composer.
1824 - 1887 Gustav Kirchhoff electric circuits, spectrum analysis. W M
1824 - 1896 Anton Bruckner, composer.
1825 - 1863 August Beer physicist who wrote on optics. Beer-Lambert law of absorption of light. W
1825 - 1892 Henry Walter Bates, naturalist and explorer, 1863 A Naturalist on the River Amazon. W
1825 - 1895 T. H. Huxley biologist, educator and organiser of science. @ W B @ @ @
1825 - 1899 Johann Strauss, the younger, composer The 'Blue Danube' Waltz.
1826 - 1864 Stephen Foster, song composer.
1827 - 1881 John Ferguson McLennan, ethnologist, 1865 Primitive Marriage W
1827 - 1912 Joseph Lister antiseptic surgery.
1829: W. Australia becomes part of British empire
1829 - 1869 Louis Gottschalk, musician.
1829 - 1896 Friedrich August Kekule, 1865 elucidated the structure of benzene (C6H6) as a ring of carbon atoms. W
1830: Algeria invaded by France
1830 - 1895 Julius Lothar Meyer, atomic volume. W
1831 - 1879 James Clerk Maxwell, 1873 Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, 1894 Matter and Motion M
1831 - 1914 Eduard Suess first ideas of prehistoric super-continent. W
1832 - 1883 Gustave Dore, artist
1832 - 1898 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll, 1865 and 1872 Alice's Adventures, Hunting of the Snark. @
1832 - 1923 Gustave Eiffel architect, engineer, 1886 'Statue of Liberty' New York, 1889 'Eiffel Tower' Paris. W
1833 - 1887 Alexander Borodin, composer and chemist.
1833 - 1897 Johannes Brahms, composer.
1834 - 1896 William Morris, writer, designer
1834 - 1904 Frederic Auguste Bartholdi monumental sculptor, 1880 the 'Lion of Belfort'; 1886 'Liberty Enlightening the World' (the Statue of Liberty). W
1834 - 1917 Edgar Degas, painter @
1834 - 1907 Dmitri Mendeleev, 1869 periodic table W @ @ @
1835 - 1918 César Cui, composer.
1835 - 1921 Camille Saint Saens, composer.
1836 - 1920 Norman Lockyer discovered the element helium in the solar spectrum. Studied history of ancient Egyptian astronomy.
1837 - 1910 Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev, composer.
1837 - 1900 Wilhelm Kuhne physiology of muscle and nerve, chemistry of digestion, 1877 defines "enzyme", trypsin W
1838: Zulu - Boer war.
1838 - 1842: First Anglo-Afghan war
1838 - 1875 Georges Bizet, opera composer, Carmen.
1838 - 1907 William Henry Perkin 1856 synthesised mauveine, the first aniline purple dye, from coal-tar extracts. He set up a business, which was the beginning of the pharmaceutical industry. @ @ W
1839 - 1842: First Opium war
1839 - 1881 Modest Mussorgsky, composer.
1839 - 1901 Paul Cezanne post-impresssionist painter W @
1840 Treaty of Waitangi between Britain and Maori chiefs, making New Zealand part of the British Empire. @
1840 - 1893 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer.
1840 - 1893 John Addington Symonds poet, historian, 1873 Studies of the Greek Poets. W
1840 - 1916 Bertrand-Jean 'Odilon' Redon symbolist artist and printmaker. W @ @
1841 - 1904 Antonin Dvorak, composer, Symphony No. 9: 'From the New World'.
1841 - 1919 Auguste Renoir painter. @
1842 - 1910 William James, 1890 Principles of Psychology, 1902 Varieties of Religious Experience.
1842 - 1921 Peter Kropotkin Anarchist, 1902 Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution. W @ @ @
1843 - 1847: First Anglo-Maori war
1843 - 1907 Edvard Grieg composer Piano Comcerto. Pier Gint Suite.
1844 - 1900 Friedrich Nietsche 1885 Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1886 Beyond Good and Evil, 1901 The Will to Power. @
1844 - 1906 Ludwig Boltzmann statistical mechanics, entropy. M
1844 - 1908 N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, composer Sheherazade.
1844 - 1929 Edward Carpenter poet, socialist, homosexual activist, 1908 The Intermediate Sex. W
1844 - 1937 Charles Widor organist, composer Tocata.
1845 - 1924 Gabriel-Urbain Fauré composer.
1846 - 1904 Emile Gallé art-nouveau glass-worker, and humanist. W @ @ @ @
1848: Revolutions in Europe
1848 - 1903 Paul Gauguin, post-impressionist painter. W @
1850 - 1894 Robert Louis Stevenson author, 1883 Treasure Island, 1886 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. W
1850 - 1927 Charles Doolittle Walcott 1909 discovered the Burgess Shale Cambrian fossils. @
1851 - 1901 George Fitzgerald indicated, 1889, how "Fitzgerald contraction" would account for the result of the Michelson - Morley experiment. M
1851 - 1922 Jacobus Kapteyn 1906: analyses motion of stars and discovers the rotation of our Galaxy and estimates its size. W
1852 - 1853: Second Anglo-Burmese war
1852 - 1911 Jacobus Van't Hoff, 1874 La chimie dans l'espace on stereoisomerism, optical activity, tetrahedral carbon atom. Later studied dynamics of chemical reactions, and osmosis, 1901 first winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. W
1852 - 1919 Emil Fischer, chemist, studied purines, sugars, peptides, proteins, amino acids, enzyme chemistry. W @
1853 - 1890 Vincent van Gogh, post-impressionist painter. W @
1853 - 1925 James Mackenzie, physician, 1919 The Future of Medicine.
1853 - 1926 Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes low temperature physics, 1908 liquid helium, 1911 superconductivity. W
1853 - 1928 Hendrik Lorentz, 1904 Lorentz transformation, special relativity. M M
1854 - 1928 Leos Janacek musician, composer.
1854 - 1932 Patrick Geddes, 1889 Evolution of Sex, 1914 Sex. W
1854 - 1932 John Philip Sousa, bandmaster, composer, marches.
1854 - 1941 James G. Frazer 1890 The Golden Bough. Documents similarities among magical and religious beliefs across the world. W
1855 vegetable parchment made.
1856 - 1857: Persia at war with Britain after taking Herat (Afghanistan); 1856 - 1860: Second Opium war
1856 - 1939 Sigmund Freud neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis. @
1857 - 1924 Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski, Polish author, writing in English, 1899 Heart of Darkness. W
1857 - 1934 Edward Elgar, composer.
1857 - 1936 Andrija Mohorovicic seismologist, identified Earth has an outer crust over a denser, hotter 'mantle' 2900km thick. W
1857 - 1936 Karl Pearson invented 'biometrics' and advanced statistics, but also advocated eugenics W F @
1858 - 1924 Giacomo Puccini, musician.
1858 - 1936 R. D. Oldham 1906 analysed seismograph waves and concluded that Earth had a dense 'core' 7000 km in diameter. @ @
1858 - 1942 Franz Boas 1911 The Mind of Primitive Man. Challenged widely-held racist and eugenicist claims of the time. W.
1858 - 1944 Ethel Smyth, composer.
1858 - 1947 Max Planck quantum theory of black body radiation, 1918 awarded Nobel prize in Physics. M @
1859 - 1891 Georges Seurat, painter. @
1859 - 1913 John Milne studied earthquakes and developed a seismograph for recording shock waves. W
1859 - 1939 Henry Havelock Ellis, psychologist, 1915 Sexual Inversion. W
1860 - 1872: Second Anglo-Maori war
1860 - 1903 Hugo Wolf, musician.
1860 - 1909 Isaac Albéniz, composer.
1860 - 1911 Gustav Mahler, composer.
1860 - 1917 Eduard Buchner 1897 On alcoholic fermentation without yeast cells, 1903 Zymosis. @ @
1860 - 1939 Alphonse Mucha, artist
1860 - 1941 Ignacy Paderewski pianist, composer, statesman.
1860 - 1956 Gustave Charpentier, composer.
1861 - 1865: American civil war
1861 - 1926 William Bateson, geneticist.
1862 tracing paper made.
1862 - 1951 Vilhelm Bjerknes, weather forecasting. M W
1862 - 1918 Claude Debussy, composer.
1862 - 1934 Frederick Delius, composer.
1863 - 1941 Annie Jump Cannon at Harvard College Observatory classified 400,000 stars by their spectra (O B A F G K M) and discovered 300 variable stars.
1864 - 1901 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec art-nouveau poster artist, post-impressionist painter. W @
1864 - 1940 Gustav Spiller. Prominent Humanist. Organiser of the Universal Races Congress 1911, which concludes: 'We are then under the necessity of concluding that an impartial investigator would be inclined to look upon the various important peoples of the world as, to all intents and purposes, essentially equal in intellect, enterprise, morality and physique.' @
1864 - 1949 Richard Strauss, composer.
1864 - 1941 W. Nernst, electrode potential(?).
1865 - 1931 Carl Nielsen, composer.
1865 - 1935 Paul Dukas, composer.
1865 - 1936 Alexander Glazunov, composer.
1865 - 1940 Pierre Weiss(?), magnetic susceptibility.
1865 - 1957 Jean Sibelius, composer.
1866 - 1924 Ferruccio Busoni, composer.
1866 - 1925 Erik Satie, composer.
1866 - 1944 Charles Davenport began Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbour in 1910. "In the United States by 1917 16 states had adopted sterilization laws. These laws were made possible by federal statutes that gave states the power to sterilize a wide variety of people. These included criminals, epileptics, the insane, and the mentally ill in state institutions." W @ @ @
1866 - 1945 Thomas Hunt Morgan, genes and chromosomes, 1914 Heredity and Sex W @
1867: Dominion of Canada formed
1867 - 1934 Marie Sklodowska-Curie aka Madame Curie, studied radioactivity of the Uranium ore pitchblende, isolated new elements Polonium and Radium. Awarded Nobel Prizes for Physics 1903 and Chemistry 1911. @
1867 - 1942 Hector Guimard art-nouveau architect, Paris Metro. W @ @
1867 - 1944 Charles Dana Gibson illustrator
1867 - 1956 Frank Brangwyn Muralist/Etcher
1868 - 1934 Fritz Haber, commercial synthesis of ammonia. W @ @
1868 - 1917 Scott Joplin, composer.
1868 - 1921 Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovers the period-luminosity law for Cepheid variable stars, found in nearby star clusters, enabling distances of galaxies to be estimated.
1868 - 1928 Charles Rennie Mackintosh art-nouveau interior designer and architect. W @ @ @
1868 - 1938 George Hale Founded three observatories: Yerkes, Mt Wilson and Mt Palomar. Discovered sunspots have localised magnetic fields.
1869 - 1943 Ales Hrdlicka, 1925 The Old Americans, anthropology. W
1870 - 1966 Maxfield Parrish painter/illustrator.
1870 - 1927 Bertram Boltwood, 1911 first used radioactivity to estimate date of rocks.
1871 - 1937 Ernest Rutherford 1911 discovered atoms consisted of a very small heavy nucleus with surrounding cloud of electrons, 1913 Radioactive Substances and their Radiations. @ @ W @ @ @
1872 - 1970 Bertrand Russell, 1901 Russell's Paradox in logic of set theory, 1903 Principles of Mathematics, 1946 History of Western Philosophy. M
1872 - 1898 Aubrey Beardsley art-nouveau illustrator. W
1872 - 1944 Edward Johnston calligrapher, typographer, designed the typeface used on London Underground. W
1872 - 1915 Alexander Skryabin, composer.
1872 - 1949 William Nicholson artist.
1872 - 1958 Ralph Vaughan Wiliams, composer.
1873 Electricity and Magnetism by Maxwell, publishes the four partial differential equations of electromagnetism.
1873 - 1916 Karl Schwartzchild the "Schwartzchild radius" is the distance at which light cannot excape from a black hole.
1873 - 1943 Sergey Rachmaninov, pianist, composer.
1873 - 1967 Ejnar Hertzsprung Inventor (with Henry Russell see 1877) of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram relating absolute magnitude and spectral type of stars, showing the evolution of main-sequence stars.
1874 - 1934 Gustav Holst, composer.
1874 - 1941 Elsie Clews Parsons, 1913 The Old-Fashioned Woman.
1874 - 1949 Ludwig Hohlwein poster artist.
1874 - 1951 Arnold Schoenberg, composer.
1874 - 1954 Charles Ives, composer.
1875 - 1937 Maurice Ravel, composer.
1876 - 1946 Manuel de Falla, composer.
1876 - 1956 Walter Sydney Adams 1913: devises a luminosity scale for stars based on spectral colour, from blue down to yellow, and red. W
1876 - 1972 Havergal Brian, composer.
1877 - 1957 Henry Russell One of the inventors of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram relating absolute magnitude and spectral type of stars, showing the evolution of main-sequence stars.
1877 - 1960 James Flagg illustrator.
1878 - 1880: Second Anglo-Afghan war
1879 - 1955 Albert Einstein 1905 'Annus Mirabilis' Papers, includes Special Theory of Relativity. His E = m.c^2 equation shows energy of stars can come from matter. 1916 Relativity: The Special and General Theory This replaces three-dimensional Euclidean space and time by the four-dimensional space-time of Minkowsky.
W M @ @ W G G1879 - 1958 Milutin Milankovitch, climate cycles. W @ @
1879 - 1958 Ernest Jones neurologist, populariser of psychoanalysis, biographer of Sigmund Freud. W
1880 - 1881: First Anglo-Boer War.
1880 halftone printing invented.
1880 - 1930 Alfred Wegener formulated theories of continental drift. B W @ @
1880 - 1936 Oswald Spengler historian and philosopher, 1918 and 1922 Der Untergang des Abendlandes (The Decline of the West), 1923 vol.2 Perspectives of World History. W @ @ W
1880 - 1956 H. L. Mencken journalist, essayist, critic, controversialist, 1919 The American Language. @ W W
1881 - 1945 Bela Bartok, composer.
1881 - 1957 Irving Langmuir @
1881 - 1973 Pablo Picasso aka Pablo Ruiz Blasco, cubist artist, Guernica. @
1882: Triple Alliance formed between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy (to 1914).
1882 - 1940 Eric Gill sculptor, engraver, typographer; 1928 Gill Sans typeface; 1932 sculpture Prospero and Ariel for BBC Broadcasting House; social reformer 'Distributism'; paedophile. W @ @
1882 - 1944 Arthur Eddington observations verified Einstein's prediction that light could be bent by gravity, developed theory of Cepheid variable stars and relation between mass and luminosity.
1882 - 1945 Robert H. Goddard, rocket scientist. W
1882 - 1961 Percy Grainger, composer.
1882 - 1967 Zoltan Kodaly, composer.
1882 - 1971 Igor Stravinsky, composer.
1883 - 1918 Hans Erdt, poster artist. W
1883 - 1946 John Maynard Keynes, 1936 General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.
1883 - 1945 Anton von Webern, composer.
1884 - 1885: Congress of Berlin divides up Africa
typefaces: 1884 Ronaldson
1884 - 1958 Motonori Matuyama discovered that the Earth's magnetic polarity reverses. @
1885: Third Anglo-Burmese war
1885 - 1935 Alban Berg, composer.
1885 - 1962 Niels Bohr quantised theory of atom, 1913 On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules, 1921 Atomic Structure M @ W @ @
1886 The Statue of Liberty, a robed female figure bearing a torch, by Frederic Bartholdi, was built on an island in the harbour of New York. W
1886 - 1941 James Pryde artist.
1887 Michelson-Morley experiment fails to detect change in velocity of light.
1888 Hertz shows light is a type of electromagnetic wave.
1887 - 1959 Heitor Villa-Lobos, composer.
1887 - 1961 Erwin Schrodinger wave equations of quantum theory. M
1888 - 1925 Alexander Friedmann 1922 put forward theory of an expanding universe from a "primordial atom". W
1889 - 1953 Edwin Hubble astronomer, 1924 determined distance of Andromeda galaxy, 1929 redshift observations led to Hubble's Law that rate of recession proportional to distance, which supported the idea of an expanding universe and leads to the big bang theory; 1936 The Realm of the Nebulae interpreting nebulae as galaxies of stars. @ W
1889 - 1969 Ben Shahn lithographer/painter.
1890 development of photoprocess, Kelmscott Press founded by William Morris.
1891 - 1953 Sergei Prokofiev, composer.
1892 - 1987 Louis de Broglie quantum wave-particle duality. M
1893 - 1960 Walter Baade resolved stars within the Andromeda galaxy, discovered there are two types of Cepheid variable stars, doubling the distances found by Hubble in 1929. W
1894 - 1978 Norman Rockwell illustrator.
1895 - 1963 Paul Hindemith, composer.
1895 - 1982 Carl Orff, composer, Carmina Burana.
1896 - 1980 Jean Piaget, developmental psychologist; 1926 The Child's Conception of the World; 1936 The Origin of Intelligence in Children; 1958 The Early Growth of Logic in the Child. @
1897 - 1975 Jacob Bjerknes, weather forecasting.
1898 - 1937 George Gershwin, composer.
1,899 - 1902: Second Anglo-Boer War
1899 - 1963 Francis Poulenc, composer.
1899 - 1989 Octave Mannoni 1950 Prospero and Caliban: The Psychology of Colonisation. @
1900 - 1950 Kurt Weil, composer.
1900 - 1990 Aaron Copland, composer.
1900 - 1992 Jan Oort Measured the size of our galaxy and the sun's position in it. Proposed an "Oort cloud" of distant icy comets exists.
1901: Commonwealth of Australia formed
1901 - 1954 Enrico Fermi physicist, 1938 Nobel Prize, developed first nuclear reactor, worked on the atomic bomb project. @
1901 - 1968 A. M. Cassandra poster artist.
1901 - 1994 Linus Pauling awarded Nobel Prizes for Chemistry 1954, and Peace 1963. @
1901 - 1999 Joaquin Rodrigo composer, Comncerto de Aranjuez.
1901. First Nobel Prizes awarded.
1901 - 1976 Werner Heisenberg physicist, matrix equations of quantum theory, uncertainty principle. M
1902 - 1994 Karl Popper, 1934 Die Logik der Forschung (The Logic of Scientific Discovery) (English translation 1959). @
1902 - 1984 Paul Dirac, 1927 relativistic quantum equation, prediction of antimatter positron. M
1902 - 1983 William Walton, composer.
1903 - 1978 Aram Khachaturian, composer.
1903 - 1989 Konrad Lorenz, 1935 imprinting in young birds, ethology.
1903 - 1950 Eric Arthur Blair aka George Orwell, writer, 1945 Animal Farm, 1946 Politics and the English Language, 1948 1984, includes principles of "Newspeak". W @ @ @ @ W
1904 - 1968 George Gamow, put forward the idea that the sun's energy comes from nuclear fusion, astrophysics, 1948 The Origin of Chemical Elements, with Alpher and Bethe, predicted the level of microwave background radiation. W
1904 - 1991 Graham Greene, novelist, 1938 Brighton Rock, 1949 The Third Man.
1904 - 1975 Luigi Dallapiccola, composer.
1905 - 1950 Karl Jansky pioneer of radio astronomy.
1905 - 1973 Gerard Kuiper astronomer who discovered "Kuiper belt" of comets beyond Pluto, also several planetary moons and atmosphere of Titan.
1905 - 1998 Michael Tippett, composer.
1905 - 1991 Carl D. Anderson, 1932 discovery of positron. W @
1906 - 1975 Dmitri Shosdtakovich, composer.
1906 - 1983 Elisabeth Lutyens, composer.
1906 - 1997 Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto photographically in 1930 at Lowell Observatory, Arizona.
1907: Dominion of New Zealand founded
1907 - 1964 Rachel Carson, 1962 Silent Spring. @ W @ @
1908: Tunguska event in Siberia, most recent large-scale disaster caused by explosion of body from space entering atmosphere.
1908 - 1992 Olivier Messaien, composer.
1908 - 2012 Elliott Carter, composer. W
1908 - 2009 Claude Levi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques 1955 and many other works. Argued that human characteristics are the same everywhere. Advocated 'structural anthropology'. W
1909 - 1968 The Eugenics Review journal, published by the Galton Institute @
1909 - 1997 Isaiah Berlin, philosopher, 1958 Two Concepts of Liberty. W
1910 Return of Halley's comet, perihelion 19 April.
1910: South Africa beomes independent dominion
1910 aluminium foil made.
1910 - 1920: Mexican revolution
1910 - 1981 Samuel Barber, composer.
1910 - 1995 Subramanyan Chandrasekhar theory of stellar evolution. "Chandrasekhar limit" to the stability of white dwarf stars, 1.4 solar masses.
1911: Superconduction by certain materials near absolte zero temperature discovered by Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes.
1911 - 1993 William Golding, writer, 1954 Lord of the Flies, 1955 The Inheritors. @ W @
1912 - 1913: Balkan wars
1912: China: Republic
1912 cellophane invented.
1912 - 1992 John Cage, composer.
1912 - 1954 Alan Turing, 1950 Computing Machinery and Intelligence. @ W @ M @ @ @
1913 - 1976 Benjamin Britten, composer.
1913 - 1994 Witold Luteslawski, composer.
June 1914: assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, leading to outbreak of the First World War. W
August 1914: Panama canal opened. W
1914 - 2006 James Van Allen studied the magnetosphere of the Earth. Promoted the inclusion of scientific instruments on space satellites, during "International Geophysical Year" 1958 when Explorer and Pioneer satellites were launched.
1915 - 1984 Elso Barghoorn, precambrian fossils.
1915 - 2001 Fred Hoyle, astrophysics, 1946 developed ideas of nucleosynthesis within stars, 1950 The Nature of the Universe, proposed a steady state cosmology in opposition to what he called the "big bang" theory. Favoured a panspermia theory of origin of life from space. W
1916 - 1997 Robert Dicke physicist involved in detection of microwave background radiation.
1916 - 2004 Francis Crick, structure of DNA. @ W @ @ (The Crick papers).
1916 - 2004 Maurice Wilkins, structure of DNA; 1966 Of Molecules and Men. W
1916 - 2011 Milton Babbitt, composer of serial and electronic music, synthesiser.
W1917: US declares war on Germany. Russian revolution.
1918: Spanish flu outbreak, in two years killed as many as the "black death" in 200.
1918 - 1990 Leonard Bernstein composer, conductor.
1919 - James Lovelock, ecologist, Gaia hypothesis. @ @ W @
1919 - 1982 Henri Tajfel, 1963 group rivalry experiments. W @
1920: German colonies in Pacific acquired by Australia and Japan
1920 - 2004 John Maynard Smith, evolutionist.
1920 - 1958 Rosalind Franklin structure of DNA from X-ray crystallography. @
1921 - 2002 John Rawls, 1971 A Theory of Justice, 1996 Political Liberalism W @ @ @
1922: Egypt becomes independent
1922 - 2001 Iannis Xenakis, composer, 1963 Formalised Music.
1,923: Ottoman empire ends. Turkish republic founded.
1923 - 2006 Gyorgy Ligeti, composer
1923 - 2012 Patrick Moore Popular writer on astronomy. His TV programme The Sky at Night began in 1957.
1923 - 2020 Freeman Dyson, physics theorist, 1979 Time without End, ideas about the end of the universe.
@1924 - 1990 Luigi Nano, musician
1925 - 2003 Luciano Berio, composer, electronic music. W
1925 - 2016 Pierre Boulez, composer, conductor. W
1925 - 1961 Frantz Fanon, 1952 Black Skin, White Masks on negative psychological effects of colonisation; 1961 The Wretched of the Earth defends right of colonised to violent revolution. W
1926: British Empire becomes "British Commonwealth of Nations".
1926 - 2010 Allan Sandage Successor to Hubble at Palomar observatory, obtained much more accurate values of Hubble constant, indicating a much greater age for the universe, and discovered the first quasar. W
1926 - 2012 Hans Werner Henze, composer, 1968 The Raft of the Medusa requiem for Che Guevara. W
1928 - 1967 Ernesto 'Che' Guevara South American revolutionary. W
1928 - Karlheinz Stockhausen, musician, composer, aleatoric and electronic music. W
1928 - James Watson, 1953 structure of DNA, 1965 The Molecular Biology of the Gene, 1968 The Double Helix, director Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; 1988 Human Genome Project; 2007 controversial views on race condemned by CSHL and other bodies. @ W @ @
1929 - Edward O. Wilson, biologist, 1975 Sociobiology. W
1930: First Commonwealth Games held in Canada.
1930 - 1996 Toru Takemitsu, musician
1931 - Roger Penrose Oxford mathematician, worked on theory of black holes. Also known for his discovery of infinite non-repeating tilings.
1932: Saudi Arabia united
On July 14, 1933 the Nazi Cabinet in Germany passed the Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases in Future Generations. This law, which was to be implemented on January 1, 1934 called for the sterilization of "lives unworthy of life". These "unworthy lives" included those persons suffering from congenital mental retardation, schizophrenia, manic-dpressive insanity, epilepsy, Huntington's chorea, hereditary blindness, hereditary deafness, grave bodily malformation, and severe alcoholism. To enforce the sterilization laws, Nazi leadership created special "Hereditary Health Courts." All physicians were legally required to report to the courts anyone they encountered who fell into any of the categories for sterilization. As a result, by 1937 some 225,000 individuals had been sterilized by German authorities, a figure that was roughly ten times the number in the United States.
1933 - Krzysztof Penderecki, composer.
1933 - Arno Penzias discoverer with Robert Wilson of the cosmic background radiation, evidence for the big bang theory.
1934 - 1935: Long March in China
1934 - 1996 Carl Sagan Science populariser, involved in the search for extra-terrestrial life (SETI).
1934 - 1998 Alfred Schnittke, musician
1934 - 2016 Peter Maxwell-Davies, musician
1934 - Harrison Birtwistle, musician
1935: Ethiopia invaded by Italy
1935 - Arvo Part, minimalist composer 1978 Spiegel im Spiegel. W
1935 - Terry Riley, minimalist composer. W
1936 - Robert Wilson discoverer with Arno Penzias of the cosmic background radiation, evidence for the big bang theory.
1936 - Steve Reich, minimalist composer. W
1936 - 2000 William D. Hamilton altruism in evolution. @
1937 - Philip Glass, minimalist composer. W
1939 beginning of World War II, precipitated by the invasion of Poland by Germany, under the totalitarian rule of the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler.
1940 - 1993 Frank Zappa, musician
1940 - Alan Guth Physicist. Introduced the idea of a period of rapid expansion known as "inflation" into the big bang theory, to account for the "flatness" of the geometry.
1941: USA enters world war, after Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, Hawaii
1941 - Richard Dawkins, 1976 The Selfish Gene; 1986 The Blind Watchmaker; 1995-2008 Oxford Professor of the Public Understanding of Science; 2006 The God Delusion. W @
1942 - Dan Mckenzie, geophysicist who developed geological theory of plate tectonics. W
1942 - 2018 Stephen Hawking, Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, combined features of relativity and quantunm theory to predict "Hawking radiation" from black holes. Author of popular work 1988 A Brief History of Time. @ W
1942: Battle of El Alamein
1943 - Gavin Bryars, composer, double bass player. W
1944 - 2013 John Tavener, composer, 1993 Song for Athene.
1944 - Michael Nyman, minimalist composer; 1993 soundtrack from film The Piano. W
1945: NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) demonstrated by two American groups.1945 - Anton Zeilinger quantum physics theorist. @
1945. Founding of the United Nations in the hope of preventing future conflicts.
1946 - 1949: Chinese Civil War
1947 - Gregory Chaitin, 1982 Godel's Theorem and Information. W @
1947 - John Adams, composer
1947; India and Pakistan gain independence from Britain.
1947 - 1948: Palestine partitioned. Jewish state of Israel established.
1948 - 1949: First Arab-Israeli war
1948? - Robert Axelrod, Complexity of Cooperation. @
1949: NATO formed. Germany divided into East and West (to 1990).
Policy of apartheid in South Africa (to 1991).
The British Commonwealth becomes just "The Commonwealth".
1950 - 1953: Korean war
1,951: ANZUS alliance signed
1952: Military coup in Egypt
1953 - David Deutsch, quantum computers. W @
1954: French withdraw from Indochina
1954 acrylic paints invented.
1956: Suez crisis
1954 - Steven Benner, synthetic biology, genomics. W
1957: EEC established.
Independence movements in Africa (to 1975).
1958 'International Geophysical Year' when Explorer and Pioneer satellites were launched.
1959: Cuban revolution.
Hawaii becomes 50th state of USA.
1959 - Stephen Wolfram 2002 A New Kind of Science. @ @ (Review by S. Weinberg).
1960: Sharpeville massacre in South Africa
1963 - Garry Kasparov aka Garri Weinstein; 1984 world chess champion, 1986/7 games against IBM Deep Blue computer. @
1964 - 1975: Vietnam war. USA involved until 1973.
1966 - 1976: Cultural Revolution in China
1967: Six Day War
1969: The Microprocessor chip designed by Ted Hoff of Intel.
1969: IRA Violence in Northern Ireland
1969: The first men land on the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11.
1972: Yom Kippur war
1972. The last exploration of the Moon: Apollo 17.
1973 - 1974: Oil prices increased by OPEC
1975: Microsoft (Bill Gates and Paul Allen) and Apple (Steve Jobs) introduce Personal Computers.
1976: Viking robot probe mission to Mars.
1977: MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner developed by Raymond Damadian in America, based on work by Felix Bloch.
1978 - 1989: Vietnam invades Cambodia
1979 - 1989: USSR invades Afghanistan
1980: Abortion pill mifepristone (RU-486) synthesised by Etienne-Emile Baulieu and manufactured by Roussel Uclaf company.
1980: Black majority rule in Zimbabwe
1980 - 1988: Iran-Iraq war
1981: Scanning Tunnelling Microscope earns Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer of IBM in Zurich a Nobel Prize.
1982: Falklands war
1985: South Pacific dclared a nuclear-free zone. Greenpeace ship destroyed by French
1986: A superconductor ceramic that would operate at 30 degrees above absolute zero, discovered by Georg Bednorz and Alex Muller at IBM in Zurich.
1989 - 2000: Afghan Civil war
1990: Hubble Space Telescope launched.
1991: Trevor Baylis invents wind-up radio;
Tim Collings at Simon Fraser University British Columbia, invents V-chip to enable parents to censor TV programmes.
1991: USSR breaks up; Civil war in Yugoslavia; Gulf war.
1992: Yugoslavia breaks up. Czechs and Slovaks separate.
1993: Israel-PLO peace accord
1994: A drug developed to treat angina is found to be more effective against male impotence, Nicholas Terrett and Peter Ellis patent drug, now called Viagra.
1994: Palestinian autonomous areas established.
World Trade Organisation formed.
Ethnic massacres in Rwanda and Burundi.
ANC wins multiracial elections in South Africa.
1995: South Pacific Forum condemns France for nuclear tests
1997: Cloning of Dolly the sheep at Roslin Institute by Ian Wilmut and colleagues becomes public issue.
1997: Lease on New Territories ends. Hong Kong handed over to China. Economic crisis in far east.
1999: China resumes sovereignty over Macao.
NATO attacks Serbia over Kosovo.