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1600
Two spectacle-makers, Hans and Zacharis Janssen, constructed the first compund microscope using two lenses inside a tube -
1665
Rebert Hooke (1635-1703) further developed the compound microscope, including the use of iris diaphram. Hooke kept a detailed record of his observations. her first described cells (or rather, plant cells) in his discription of a slice of cork he observed under his microscope. he described it as '...all perforated and porous, much like a honeycomb...the pores or cells...consisted of a great many little boxes...' -
1683
Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria from his observations of saliva -
1831
Robert Brown (1773-1858) noted that cells of orchids he was observing under the microscope contained a structure inside the cell. He called this the 'nucleus' -
1839
Matthias Shleiden (1804-1881) and Theodor Schwann (1810-1882) formulated the cell theory that all living matter is composed of small units called cells -
1858
Rudolf Vichow (1821-1901) stated that 'where a cell exists there must have been a pre-exsisting cell, juat as the animal arises only from an animal and the plant only from a plant' -
1933
Ernst Ruska built the first electron microscope. Transmission electron microscopes and scanning electron microscopes were developed in the following decades. details of internal cell structures were revealed