The year 1783 in
science
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
and
technology
Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...
involved some significant events:
Astronomy
* February 26 –
Caroline Herschel
Caroline Lucretia Herschel ( , ; 16 March 1750 – 9 January 1848) was a German astronomer, whose most significant contributions to astronomy were the discoveries of several comets, including the periodic comet 35P/Herschel–Rigollet, which b ...
discovers
NGC 2360
NGC 2360 (also known as Caroline's Cluster or Caldwell 58) is an open cluster in the constellation Canis Major. It was discovered on 26 February 1783 by Caroline Herschel, who described it as a "beautiful cluster of pretty compressed stars near 1 ...
.
* May –
John Goodricke
John Goodricke FRS (17 September 1764 – 20 April 1786) was an English amateur astronomer. He is best known for his observations of the variable star Algol (Beta Persei) in 1782.
Life and work
John Goodricke, named after his great-grandfa ...
presents his conclusions that the
variable star
A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes systematically with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are ...
Algol
ALGOL (; short for "Algorithmic Language") is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL heavily influenced many other languages and was the standard method for algorithm description used by the ...
is what comes to be known as an
eclipsing binary
A binary star or binary star system is a Star system, system of two stars that are gravity, gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved ...
to the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
of London.
* August 18 –
Great Meteor passes over
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
, exciting scientific interest.
* November 27 –
John Michell
John Michell (; 25 December 1724 – 21 April 1793) was an English natural philosopher and clergyman who provided pioneering insights into a wide range of scientific fields including astronomy, geology, optics, and gravitation. Considered "on ...
proposes the existence of
black hole
A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...
s ("dark stars").
*
Jérôme Lalande
Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande (; 11 July 1732 – 4April 1807) was a French astronomer, freemason and writer. He is known for having estimated a precise value of the astronomical unit (the distance from the Earth to the Sun) using measu ...
publishes a revised edition of
John Flamsteed
John Flamsteed (19 August 1646 – 31 December 1719) was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. His main achievements were the preparation of a 3,000-star catalogue, ''Catalogus Britannicus'', and a star atlas called '' Atlas ...
’s
star catalogue
A star catalogue is an astronomical catalogue that lists stars. In astronomy, many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers. There are a great many different star catalogues which have been produced for different purposes over the year ...
in an
ephemeris
In astronomy and celestial navigation, an ephemeris (; ; , ) is a book with tables that gives the trajectory of naturally occurring astronomical objects and artificial satellites in the sky, i.e., the position (and possibly velocity) over tim ...
, ''Éphémérides des mouvemens célestes'', numbering the stars consecutively by constellation, the system which becomes known as "
Flamsteed designation
A Flamsteed designation is a combination of a number and constellation name that uniquely identifies most naked eye stars in the 88 modern constellations, modern constellations visible from southern England. They are named after John Flamsteed, au ...
s".
Aviation
* June 5 – The
Montgolfier brothers
The Montgolfier brothers – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (; 26 August 1740 – 26 June 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (; 6 January 1745 – 2 August 1799) – were aviation pioneers, balloonists and paper manufacturers from the Communes o ...
send up at
Annonay
Annonay (; ) is a Communes of France, commune and largest city in the north of the Ardèche department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of southeastern France. It is the most populous commune in the Ardèche department although it is not the ...
, near
Lyon
Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
, a 900 m linen
hot air balloon
A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carri ...
as a public demonstration. Its flight covers 2 km and lasts 10 minutes, to an estimated altitude of 1600–2000 metres.
* August 27 –
Jacques Charles
Jacques Alexandre César Charles (12 November 1746 – 7 April 1823) was a French people, French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist.
Charles wrote almost nothing about mathematics, and most of what has been credited to him was due ...
and the
Robert brothers
Les Frères Robert were two French brothers. Anne-Jean Robert (1758–1820) and Nicolas-Louis Robert (1760–1828) were the engineers who built the world's first hydrogen balloon for professor Jacques Charles, which flew from central Paris on ...
launch the first hydrogen balloon in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
.
* November 21 – The first free flight by humans in a balloon is made by
Pilâtre de Rozier and
Marquis d'Arlandes
A marquess (; ) is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German-language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman with the rank of a marquess or the wife (or wido ...
who fly aloft for 25 minutes about 100 metres above Paris for a distance of 9 km.
[
* December 26 – ]Louis-Sébastien Lenormand
Louis-Sébastien Lenormand (May 25, 1757 – April 4, 1837) was a French chemist, physicist, inventor, monk, and a pioneer in parachuting.
Early life
Lenormand was born in Montpellier on May 25, 1757 as the son of a clockmaker. Between 1775 and ...
makes the first ever recorded public demonstration of a parachute
A parachute is a device designed to slow an object's descent through an atmosphere by creating Drag (physics), drag or aerodynamic Lift (force), lift. It is primarily used to safely support people exiting aircraft at height, but also serves va ...
descent by jumping from the tower of the Montpellier
Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...
observatory in France using his rigid-framed model which he intends as a form of fire escape.
Botany
* Jean Baptiste François Pierre Bulliard
Jean Baptiste François Pierre Bulliard (; 24 November 1752 in Aubepierre-sur-Aube Haute-Marne – 26 September 1793 in Paris), also known simply as Pierre Bulliard, was a French physician and botanist.
Bulliard studied in Langres, where he b ...
publishes his ''Dictionnaire Elémentaire de Botanique'', contributing to the spread of Linnaean terminology, particularly in mycology
Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungus, fungi, including their Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, genetics, biochemistry, biochemical properties, and ethnomycology, use by humans. Fungi can be a source of tinder, Edible ...
.
* Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Robert Darwin (12 December 173118 April 1802) was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosophy, natural philosopher, physiology, physiologist, Society for Effecting the ...
begins publication of ''A System of Vegetables'', a translation of Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...
in which he coins many common English language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
names of plants.
Chemistry
* Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794), When reduced without charcoal, it gave off an air which supported respiration and combustion in an enhanced way. He concluded that this was just a pure form of common air and that i ...
publishes ''Réflexions sur le phlogistique'', showing the phlogiston theory
The phlogiston theory, a superseded scientific theory, postulated the existence of a fire-like element dubbed phlogiston () contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. The name comes from the Ancient Greek (''burnin ...
to be inconsistent, proposing chemical reaction
A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the chemistry, chemical transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. When chemical reactions occur, the atoms are rearranged and the reaction is accompanied by an Gibbs free energy, ...
as an alternative theory in a paper read to the French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...
in June, names hydrogen
Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...
and demonstrates that water is a compound and not an element
Element or elements may refer to:
Science
* Chemical element, a pure substance of one type of atom
* Heating element, a device that generates heat by electrical resistance
* Orbital elements, parameters required to identify a specific orbit of o ...
.
* Discovery of tungsten
Tungsten (also called wolfram) is a chemical element; it has symbol W and atomic number 74. It is a metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively in compounds with other elements. It was identified as a distinct element in 1781 and first ...
– José
José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced very differently in each of the two languages: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ).
In French, the name ''José'', pronounced ...
and Fausto Elhuyar find an acid
An acid is a molecule or ion capable of either donating a proton (i.e. Hydron, hydrogen cation, H+), known as a Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory, Brønsted–Lowry acid, or forming a covalent bond with an electron pair, known as a Lewis ...
in wolframite
Wolframite is an iron, manganese, and tungstate mineral with a chemical formula of that is the intermediate mineral between ferberite ( rich) and hübnerite ( rich). Along with scheelite, the wolframite series are the most important tungsten ...
which they reduce with charcoal
Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...
to isolate tungsten.
Earth sciences
* February 5–March 28 – Calabrian earthquakes in Kingdom of Two Sicilies
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies () was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1861 under the control of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the Bourbons. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and land area ...
.
* June 8 – The volcano
A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...
Laki
Laki () or Lakagígar (, ''Craters of Laki'') is a volcanic fissure in the western part of Vatnajökull National Park, Iceland, not far from the volcanic fissure of Eldgjá and the small village of Kirkjubæjarklaustur. The fissure is proper ...
in Iceland
Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...
begins a major eruption with extensive climatic consequences on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
.
* August 4 (Edo period
The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...
, ''Tenmei
is a Japanese era name (年号, ''nengō'', literally "years name") for the years between the An'ei Era and before the Kansei Era, from April 1781 through January 1789. The reigning emperor was .
Change of era
* 1781 : The new era name of Ten ...
'' 3) – Mount Asama
is an active complex volcano in central Honshū, the main island of Japan. The volcano is the most active on Honshū. The Japan Meteorological Agency classifies Mount Asama as rank A. It stands above sea level on the border of Gunma prefecture ...
, the most active volcano in Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
, begins climactic eruption, exacerbating a famine, following a plinian eruption
Plinian eruptions or Vesuvian eruptions are volcanic eruptions characterized by their similarity to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, which destroyed the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The eruption was described in a le ...
beginning on May 9 (Tenmei eruption
The was a large eruption of Mount Asama that occurred in 1783 (''Tenmei 3''). This eruption was one of the causes of the Tenmei famine. It is estimated that about 1,500–1,624 people were killed in the eruption. The event is known in Japanese ...
).
History of science and technology
* German physician Melchior Adam Weikard publishes a biography of microscopist
Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view subjects too small to be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of microscopy: optical, el ...
Wilhelm Friedrich von Gleichen, ''Biographie des Herrn Wilhelm Friedrich v. Gleichen genannt Rußwurm''.
Physics
* Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat (, , ; born Jean-Paul Mara; 24 May 1743 – 13 July 1793) was a French political theorist, physician, and scientist. A journalist and politician during the French Revolution, he was a vigorous defender of the ''sans-culottes ...
publishes ''Mémoire sur l'électricité médicale'' ("Memorandum on Medical Electricity").
Technology
* Henry Cort
Henry Cort (c. 1740 – 23 May 1800) was an English ironware producer who was formerly a Navy pay agent. During the Industrial Revolution in England, Cort began refining iron from pig iron to wrought iron (or bar iron) using innovative productio ...
of Funtley
Funtley – from the Anglo-Saxon, "Funtaleg", " spring field (clearing)", is a hamlet or exurb north of Fareham, Hampshire, England. It forms a projection towards the South Downs National Park and is generally included within Fareham's popul ...
, England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
, invents the grooved rolling mill
In metalworking, rolling is a metal forming process in which metal stock is passed through one or more pairs of rolls to reduce the thickness, to make the thickness uniform, and/or to impart a desired mechanical property. The concept is simi ...
for producing bar iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...
.
* Thomas Bell patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
s a method of printing on fabric from engraved cylinders.
* Horace-Bénédict de Saussure publishes ''Essai sur l'hygrométrie'', recording his experiments with the hair hygrometer
A hair tension dial hygrometer with a nonlinear scale.
A hygrometer is an instrument that measures humidity: that is, how much water vapor is present. Humidity measurement instruments usually rely on measurements of some other quantities, such a ...
.
Awards
* Copley Medal
The Copley Medal is the most prestigious award of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, conferred "for sustained, outstanding achievements in any field of science". The award alternates between the physical sciences or mathematics and the bio ...
: John Goodricke
John Goodricke FRS (17 September 1764 – 20 April 1786) was an English amateur astronomer. He is best known for his observations of the variable star Algol (Beta Persei) in 1782.
Life and work
John Goodricke, named after his great-grandfa ...
; Thomas Hutchins
Births
* May 22 – William Sturgeon
William Sturgeon (; 22 May 1783 – 4 December 1850) was an English electrical engineer and inventor who made the first electromagnet and the first practical electric motor.
Early life
Sturgeon was born on 22 May 1783 in Whittington, near ...
, English inventor (died 1850
Events
January–March
* January 29 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the United States Congress.
* January 31 – The University of Rochester is founded in Rochester, New York.
* January – Sacramento, Ca ...
)
* June 9 – Benjamin Collins Brodie, English physiologist
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out chemical and ...
(died 1862
Events
January
* January 1 – The United Kingdom annexes Lagos Island, in modern-day Nigeria.
* January 6 – Second French intervention in Mexico, French intervention in Mexico: Second French Empire, French, Spanish and British ...
)
* October 6 – François Magendie
__NOTOC__
François Magendie (6 October 1783 – 7 October 1855) was a French physiologist, considered a pioneer of experimental physiology. He is known for describing the foramen of Magendie. There is also a ''Magendie sign'', a downward ...
, French
French may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France
** French people, a nation and ethnic group
** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices
Arts and media
* The French (band), ...
physiologist (died 1855
Events
January–March
* January 1 – Ottawa, Ontario, is incorporated as a city.'
* January 5 – Ramón Castilla begins his third term as President of Peru.
* January 23
** The first bridge over the Mississippi River o ...
)
* October 22 – Constantine Samuel Rafinesque
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (; 22 October 178318 September 1840) was a French early 19th-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ult ...
, Ottoman-born French American polymath
A polymath or polyhistor is an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their knowledge, ...
(died 1840
Events
January–March
* January 3 – One of the predecessor papers of the ''Herald Sun'' of Melbourne, Australia, ''The Port Phillip Herald'', is founded.
* January 10 – Uniform Penny Post is introduced in the United Kingdom.
* Janu ...
)
* October 31 – Karl Wilhelm Gottlob Kastner, German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...
(died 1857
Events January–March
* January 1 – The biggest Estonian newspaper, '' Postimees'', is established by Johann Voldemar Jannsen.
* January 7 – The partly French-owned London General Omnibus Company begins operating.
* Ja ...
)
* December 18 – Mary Anne Whitby, English scientist (died 1850
Events
January–March
* January 29 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the United States Congress.
* January 31 – The University of Rochester is founded in Rochester, New York.
* January – Sacramento, Ca ...
)
Deaths
* March 30 – William Hunter, Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
anatomist
Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...
(born 1718
Events
January – March
* January 7 – In India, Sufi rebel leader Shah Inayat Shaheed from Sindh who had led attacks against the Mughal Empire, is beheaded days after being tricked into meeting with the Mughals to discuss ...
)
* April 16 – Christian Mayer Christian Mayer may refer to:
*Christian Mayer (astronomer) (1719–1783), Czech astronomer and teacher
*Christian Mayer (skier) (born 1972), Austrian former alpine skier
* Christian Mayer (Wisconsin politician) (1827–1910), Wisconsin manufacture ...
, Moravia
Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The medieval and early ...
n astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...
(born 1719
Events
January–March
* January 8 – Carolean Death March begins: A catastrophic retreat by a largely-Finnish Swedish- Carolean army under the command of Carl Gustaf Armfeldt across the Tydalen mountains in a blizzard kills aroun ...
)
* September 18 – Leonhard Euler
Leonhard Euler ( ; ; ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss polymath who was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician, geographer, and engineer. He founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made influential ...
, Swiss
Swiss most commonly refers to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
* Swiss people
Swiss may also refer to: Places
* Swiss, Missouri
* Swiss, North Carolina
* Swiss, West Virginia
* Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
* Swiss Café, an old café located ...
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
and physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
(born 1707
In the Swedish calendar it was a common year starting on Tuesday, one day ahead of the Julian and ten days behind the Gregorian calendar.
Events
January–March
* January 1 – John V is crowned King of Portugal and the Algarv ...
)
* October 29 – Jean le Rond d'Alembert
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert ( ; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the ''Encyclopé ...
, French
French may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France
** French people, a nation and ethnic group
** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices
Arts and media
* The French (band), ...
mathematician and physicist (born 1717
Events
January–March
* January 1 – Count Carl Gyllenborg, the Swedish ambassador to the Kingdom of Great Britain, is arrested in London over a plot to assist the Pretender to the British throne, James Francis Edward Stuart.
* J ...
)
* November – Carl Linnaeus the Younger
Carl Linnaeus the Younger, Carolus Linnaeus the Younger, Carl von Linné den yngre ( Swedish; abbreviated Carl von Linné d. y.), or ''Linnaeus filius'' (Latin for ''Linnaeus the son''; abbreviated L.fil. (outdated) or L.f. (modern) as a botani ...
, Swedish naturalist
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
(born 1741
Events
January–March
* January 13
** Lanesborough, Massachusetts is created as a township.
** Conventicle Act of 1741 is introduced in Denmark-Norway.
*February 13 – Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister of Great Britain ...
)
* December 13 – Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin
Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin ( Sunne parish, Jämtlands län 11 September 1717 ( OS) – Stockholm 13 December 1783), Swedish astronomer and demographer.
Wargentin was the son of the vicar of Sunne Wilhelm Wargentin (1670–1735) and his spouse C ...
, Swedish astronomer (born 1717)
* December 16 – Arima Yoriyuki, Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
ese mathematician (born 1714
Events
January–March
* January 21 – After being tricked into deserting a battle against India's Mughal Empire by the rebel Sayyid brothers, Prince Azz-ud-din Mirza is blinded on orders of the Emperor Farrukhsiyar as punishment.
* ...
)
* Wilhelm Friedrich von Gleichen, German microscopist (born 1717)
References
{{reflist
18th century in science
1780s in science