| 1202 | Arabic numeration introduced into Europe by Leonardo of Pisa (Liber Abaci); it spread slowly, and did not become universal till the middle of the seventeenth century. |
| 1214-1294. | Roger Bacon. |
| 1265-1321. | Dante. |
| 1271-1295. | Travels of Marco Polo. |
| 1304-1374. | Petrarch. |
| 1324?-1384. | Wycliffe. |
| 1340?-1400. | Chaucer. |
| 1410. | Wood-engraving introduced about this time. |
| 1423. | Earliest known block-book. |
| 1450? | Mazarin Bible, printed by moveable types. |
| 1453. | Taking of Constantinople by the Turks. |
| 1466?-1536. | Erasmus. |
| 1471-1528. | Albert Durer. |
| 1472-1543. | Copernicus. |
| 1475-1564. | Michael Angelo. |
| 1477-1576. | Titian. |
| 1483-1520. | Raphael. |
| 1483-1546. | Martin Luther. |
| 1492. | First voyage of Columbus. |
| 1497-1498. | Voyage of Vasco da Gama to India by the Cape. |
| 1516. | More's Utopia. |
| 1517. | Luther's theses. |
| 1519-1521. | Mexico conquered by Cortez. |
| 1519-1522. | Circumnavigation of the globe by a ship of Magellan's squadron. |
| 1530-1536. | Brunfels' Herbarum vivÆ eicones. Confession of Augsburg. |
| 1532. | Peru conquered by Pizarro. |
| 1534. | Society of Jesus founded by Loyola. |
| 1539. | Bock's New Kreutterbuch (without figures); 2nd ed. (with figures) 1546. |
| 1542. | Fuchs' Historia Stirpium. |
| 1543. | Copernicus' De Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium. Vesalius' Fabrica Humani Corporis. |
| 1545. | Botanic garden at Padua founded. |
| 1545-1564. | Council of Trent. |
| 1547. | Botanic garden at Pisa founded. |
| 1551. | Belon's Histoire Naturelle des estranges poissons marins. |
| 1551-1587. | Gesner's Historia Animalium. |
| 1553. | Belon's De aquatilibus, etc., and his Observations de plusieurs singularitez, etc. (Travels in the Levant.) |
| 1554. | Rondelet's De piscibus marinis. |
| 1555. | Belon's Histoire de la nature des Oyseaux. Rondelet's UniversÆ aquatilium HistoriÆ pars altera. |
| 1564-1616. | Shakespeare. |
| 1564-1642. | Galileo. |
| 1566. | Revolt of the Netherlands. |
| 1571. | Battle of Lepanto (advance of the Turks checked). |
| 1571-1630. | Kepler. |
| 1572. | Massacre of St. Bartholomew. |
| 1576. | L'Obel's Plantarum seu Stirpium Historia and Adversaria. |
| 1577-1580. | Drake's circumnavigation. |
| 1583. | Cesalpini's De Plantis. |
| 1588. | The Invincible Armada. |
| 1596-1650. | Descartes. |
| 1600. | Olivier de Serres' ThÉÂtre d'Agriculture. |
| 1601. | Clusius' Rariorum plantarum Historia. |
| 1605. | Clusius' Exoticorum libri decem. |
| 1610. | Galileo's microscope invented about this time. |
| 1614. | Napier's Logarithms. |
| 1618-1648. | Thirty Years' War. |
| 1620. | Voyage of Mayflower. Bacon's Novum Organum. |
| 1621. | Aselli re-discovers the lacteals. |
| 1623. | C. Bauhin's Pinax Theatri Botanici. |
| 1626. | Jardin des Plantes founded. |
| 1628. | Harvey's De motu cordis et sanguinis published, the lectures had been delivered in 1614. |
| 1635. | French Academy founded. |
| 1638. | First authenticated cure of fever by chincona bark (in Peru). |
| 1642. | New Zealand and Van Dieman's Land discovered by Tasman. |
| 1642-1727. | Newton. |
| 1643. | Barometer invented by Torricelli. |
| 1650? | Air-pump invented by Otto von Guericke. Thoracic duct discovered by Pecquet. |
| 1653. | Lymphatic vessels discovered by Rudbeck. |
| 1660. | Royal Society founded; incorporated 1662. Boyle's Spring of Air and its Effects. Ray's Catalogus Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium. |
| 1661. | Boyle's Sceptical Chemist. Passage of blood through capillaries observed by Malpighi. |
| 1665. | Hooke's Micrographia. |
| 1666. | AcadÉmie des Sciences founded. Composition of white light discovered by Newton. |
| 1668. | Redi on the Generation of Insects. |
| 1669. | Swammerdam's Historia Insectorum Generalis. Malpighi's De Bombyce. |
| 1671-1677. | Grew's Anatomy of Plants; collected in one volume, 1682. |
| 1672-1679. | Malpighi's Anatome Plantarum; collected in his Opera Omnia, 1686. |
| 1673. | Malpighi's De formatione pulli in ovo. Leeuwenhoek's first paper published by the Royal Society. |
| 1675. | Greenwich Observatory founded. Velocity of light determined by Roemer. |
| 1676. | Willughby's Ornithologia. |
| 1677. | Spermatozoa discovered by Hamm. |
| 1680. | Yeast-cells discovered by Leeuwenhoek. |
| 1682. | Ray's Methodus Plantarum. |
| 1683. | Bacteria discovered by Leeuwenhoek. |
| 1687. | Newton's Principia. |
| 1691-1694. | Camerarius on the sexes of flowering plants. |
| 1702. | Hydra discovered by Leeuwenhoek. |
| 1711-1776. | Hume. |
| 1723-1790. | Adam Smith. |
| 1725. | Vico's Scienza Nuova. |
| 1734-1742. | RÉaumur's Histoire des Insectes. |
| 1736-1810. | Watt. |
| 1737. | LinnÆus's Systema NaturÆ; last edition by LinnÆus, 1766. LinnÆus's Genera Plantarum. |
| 1737-1738. | Swammerdam's Biblia NaturÆ published; written long before. |
| 1738. | LinnÆus's Classes Plantarum. |
| 1740-1761. | Roesel von Rosenhof's Insecten-Belustigungen begun. |
| 1744. | Trembley's Polype d'eau douce (Hydra). |
| 1745. | Bonnet's TraitÉ d'Insectologie (aphids, Nais). |
| 1748. | Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois. |
| 1749-1804. | Buffon's Histoire Naturelle, the last volumes posthumous. |
| 1752. | Identity of lightning and electricity demonstrated by Franklin. |
| 1753. | British Museum founded. |
| 1755. | Black's experiments on carbonic acid and alkalis. |
| 1759. | C. F. Wolff's Theoria Generationis. |
| 1760. | Lyonet's TraitÉ Anatomique, etc. (larva of goat-moth). |
| 1770. | New South Wales discovered by Captain Cook. |
| 1775. | Priestley's experiments on the restoration by green leaves of air vitiated by combustion or respiration, and on "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen). Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. |
| 1777. | Spallanzani's experiments on the spontaneous generation of minute organisms. |
| 1781. | Uranus discovered by Herschel. Leroy's Lettres sur les Animaux (first collected edition). |
| 1784. | Cavendish's Experiments on Air (composition of water). |
| 1785. | Hutton's Theory of the Earth. |
| 1787-1789. | Lavoisier's MÉthode de nomenclature chimique (1787) and TraitÉ ÉlÉmentaire de chimie (1789). |
| 1789. | First French Revolution. A. L. de Jussieu's Genera Plantarum. White's Natural History of Selborne. |
| 1790. | Goethe's Metamorphosen der Pflanzen. |
| 1791. | Galvani's experiments on animal electricity. |
| 1792. | Sprengel's Entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur. F. Huber's Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles. |
| 1796. | Cuvier on recent and fossil elephants. |
| 1798. | Jenner's Inquiry (vaccination against small-pox). Lithography invented by Senefelder. |
| 1799. | William Smith's Order of the Strata and their Embedded Organic Remains. |
| 1799-1825. | Laplace's MÉcanique Celeste. |
| 1800. | Volta's electric pile. |
| 1807. | Dalton's Atomic theory. Davy's decomposition of potash and soda. |
| 1811. | Motor and sensory roots of spinal nerves discovered by Bell. |
| 1812. | Cuvier's Ossemens Fossiles. |
| 1816. | Cuvier's RÈgne Animal. |
| 1819. | Electro-magnetism discovered by Œrsted. Chamisso's De Salpa. |
| 1823-1831. | Pollen-tubes traced to the ovule (Amici, Brongniart, Robert Brown). |
| 1827. | Discovery of mammalian ovum by Baer. |
| 1828-1837. | Baer's Entwickelungs-geschichte. |
| 1830-1832. | Lyell's Principles of Geology. |
| 1835. | Cell-division in plants observed by Mohl. |
| 1837. | Caignard-Latour's demonstration that alcoholic fermentation is due to living organisms. |
| 1839. | Schwann and Schleiden's cell-theory. |
| 1840-1849. | Joule's determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat. |
| 1841. | Faraday's discovery of electric induction. |
| 1846. | Discovery of Neptune by Leverrier and Adams. Agassiz and Buckland's announcement of extensive glaciation in Scotland. |
| 1848. | Discovery of the antheridia of ferns by Suminsky. |
| 1849-151. | Hofmeister's comparative studies of the higher cryptogams and the flowering plants. |
| 1809-1851. | Charles Darwin. |
| 1822-1895. | Louis Pasteur. |
