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Feb 21, 1451
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus (d.1506) is born as is Amerigo Vespucci (d. 1512), explorers. This is the man that first descovered what we know today as America. He was trying to prove that he could sail east to the West Indies. He took three ships with him on his journy: Mayflow, Pinta, and the Nina. -
Feb 21, 1473
Nicolas Copernicus
Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) born. Copernicus was the first to guess that Earth and the other planets orbited around the sun. He publishes this in 1543 in Poland. He also made several contributions to math. -
Feb 21, 1522
Ferdinand Magellan
Because his family had ties to the royal family, Magellan became a page to the Portuguese queen after his parents' untimely deaths in 1490. This allowed him the opportunity to become educated and learn about the various Portuguese exploration expeditions- possibly even those conducted by Christopher Columbus. Ferdinand Magellan famously completes the first circumnavigation of the globe. -
Feb 21, 1564
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei born at Pisa, Italy. He was the oldest of seven children. His father was a musician and wool trader, who wanted his son to study medicine as there was more money in medicine. At age eleven, Galileo was sent off to study in a Jesuit monastery. -
Simon Stevin
Dutch mathematician, born in 1548 at Bruges (where the Place Simon Stevin contains his statue by Eugen Simonis) and died in 1620 at The Hague or in Leiden. In mathematics, Simon Stevin (1548-1620) proposes the use of decimals. -
Thomas Harriot
Thomas Harriot (c.1560-1521) proposed the sine law of refraction, which he failed to publish. Tycho Brahe dies at his castle new Prague. In 1580, Harriot moved to London and by 1583 had joined the household of Sir Walter Raleigh, serving as accountant, ship designer and navigational instructor to Raleigh's seamen. -
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) demonstrates that a projectile follows a parabolic path. His father was a musician and wool trader, who wanted his son to study medicine as there was more money in medicine. At age eleven, Galileo was sent off to study in a Jesuit monastery. -
John Napier
In mathematics, John Napier (1550-1617) in his Mirifici logarithmorum canonis descripto (Description of the Wonderful Principle of Logarithms) establishes rules for logarithms and supplies useful tables. He was a Scottish scholar who is best known for his invention of logarithms, but other mathematical contributions include a mnemonic for formulas used in solving spherical triangles and two formulas known as Napier's analogies. -
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) builds his first reflecting telescope; the design, which includes an eyepiece and a concave mirror, is known today as 'Newtonian'. He also discovered the relationship between external force and motion. -
Newton
Newton concentrated and sustained interest in alchemy. He also discovered the famous principle of equal and opposite reactions. He was an astronomer, mathmatician, and physicst. -
Ole Roemer
Roemer was professor of astronomy at the University of Copenhagen. Ole Roemer uses astronomical observations to derived the speed of light, which he demonstrates is finite. Until that time, scientists assumed that the speed of light was either too fast to measure or infinite. The dominant view, vigorously argued by the French philosopher Descartes, favored an infinite speed. -
Newton
Robert Hooke dies; Newton decides to go forward in publishing his work on optics; November 30 - Newton is elected President of Royal Society. He discovered the relationship between external force and motion. Newton concentrated and sustained interest in alchemy. -
Newton's Death
Newton's health fails, he collapses and borders on death; shortly thereafter, Newton dies at Kensington between 1.00 and 2.00am. On 28 March his body lays in state in Westminster Abbey where he is buried on 4 April.
