Timeline (nonfiction)

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  1452 Dec. 10: Mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, priest, maker of astronomical instruments, and professor Johannes Stöffler born.

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  1462 Feb. 1: Polymath Johannes Trithemius born. He will be remembered as a lexicographer, chronicler, cryptographer, and occultist.

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  1555 Aug. 8: Mathematician and cartographer Oronce Finé dies. He was imprisoned in 1524, probably for practicing judicial astrology.

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  1581 Oct. 9: Mathematician and linguist Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac born. He will do work in number theory and find a method of constructing magic squares.

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  1583 Feb. 23: Mathematician, astrologer, and astronomer Jean-Baptiste Morin born.

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  1600 Feb. 17: Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, and cosmological theorist Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake.

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  1600 Feb. 19: The Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina explodes in the most violent eruption in the recorded history of South America.

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  1638 Feb. 26: Mathematician and linguist Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac dies. He was the earliest writer who discussed the solution of indeterminate equations by means of continued fractions. He also did work in number theory and found a method of constructing magic squares.

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  1656 Nov. 6: Mathematician, astrologer, and astronomer Jean-Baptiste Morin dies.

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  1667 Apr. 29: Physician, satirist, and polymath John Arbuthnot born. He will invent the figure of John Bull.

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  1697 Nov. 10: Satirist, painter, illustrator, and critic William Hogarth born. His work will range from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects".

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  1732 Oct 29: Physicist and academic Laura Bassi is granted professorship in philosophy by the University of Bologna, thus also making her a member of the Academy of the Sciences.

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  1735 Feb. 27: Physician, satirist, and polymath John Arbuthnot dies. He invented the figure of John Bull.

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  1764 Oct. 26: Satirist, painter, illustrator, and critic William Hogarth dies. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects".

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  1777 Apr. 30: Mathematician, astronomer, and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss born. He will have an exceptional influence in many fields of mathematics and science and be ranked as one of history's most influential mathematicians.

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  1788 Feb 20: Physicist and academic Laura Bassi dies. She was one of the key figures in introducing Newton's ideas of physics and natural philosophy to Italy.

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  1788 Feb. 21: Scientist, inventor, and engineer Francis Ronalds born. He will be knighted for creating the first working electric telegraph.

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  1804: Mathematician and academic Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi born. He will make fundamental contributions to elliptic functions, dynamics, differential equations, and number theory.

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  1815 Dec. 10: Mathematician and writer Ada Lovelace born.

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  1851 Feb. 18: Mathematician and academic Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi dies. He made fundamental contributions to elliptic functions, dynamics, differential equations, and number theory.

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  1853 Sept 21: Physicist and academic Heike Kamerlingh Onnes born. He will receive widespread recognition for his work, including the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics for "his investigations on the properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid helium".

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  1855 Feb 23: Mathematician, astronomer, and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss dies. He had an exceptional influence in many fields of mathematics and science and is ranked as one of history's most influential mathematicians.

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  1873 Aug. 8: Scientist, inventor, and engineer Francis Ronalds dies. He was knighted for creating the first working electric telegraph.

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  1882 Mar. 23: Mathematician Emmy Noether born. She will make landmark contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics.

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  1891 Feb. 17: Mathematician Abraham Fraenkel born. He will contribute to axiomatic set theory, and publish a biography of George Cantor.

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  1903 Feb. 1: Physicist and mathematician Sir George Stokes, 1st Baronet dies. He made seminal contributions to fluid dynamics (including the Navier–Stokes equations) and to physical optics.

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  1904 Apr. 22: American physicist and academic J. Robert Oppenheimer born. His achievements in physics will include the Born–Oppenheimer approximation for molecular wavefunctions, work on the theory of electrons and positrons, the Oppenheimer–Phillips process in nuclear fusion, and the first prediction of quantum tunneling.

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  1911 Apr. 8: Physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovers superconductivity.

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  1913: A group of meteors is visible across much of the eastern seaboard of North and South America, leading astronomers to conclude the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth.

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  1926 Feb. 21: Physicist and academic Heike Kamerlingh Onnes dies. He received widespread recognition for his work, including the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics for (in the words of the committee) "his investigations on the properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid helium".

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  1932 Jan. 5: Novelist, literary critic, and philosopher Umberto Eco born. He will cite James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges as the two modern authors who will have influenced his work the most.

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  1933 Feb 22: Engineer and inventor Justin Capră born. He will design fuel-efficient cars, unconventional engines, aircraft, and jet backpacks.

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  1935 April 14: Mathematician Emmy Noether dies. She made landmark contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics.

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  1940 Feb. 27: Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and colleagues (1949) to date archaeological, geological and hydrogeological samples.

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  1943 Mar. 9: Computer scientist Jef Raskin born. He will conceive and start the Macintosh project for Apple in the late 1970s.

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  1965 Oct. 15: Mathematician Abraham Fraenkel dies. He contributed to axiomatic set theory, and published a biography of George Cantor.

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  1967 Feb. 18: American physicist and academic J. Robert Oppenheimer dies. His achievements in physics included the Born–Oppenheimer approximation for molecular wavefunctions, work on the theory of electrons and positrons, the Oppenheimer–Phillips process in nuclear fusion, and the first prediction of quantum tunneling.

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  1976 Feb. 1: Physicist and academic Werner Heisenberg dies. He introduced the uncertainty principle -- in quantum mechanics, any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle can be known.

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  1986 Feb 20: The Soviet Union launches its Mir spacecraft. Remaining in orbit for 15 years, it is occupied for ten of those years.

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  1987 Feb 22: Artist Andy Warhol dies. He was a leading figure in the Pop art movement.

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  1995 Feb. 22: The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, in existence from 1959 to 1972, is declassified.

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  2001 March 23: The Mir spacecraft is de-orbited. It had been in orbit for 15 years, it was occupied for ten of those years.

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  2005 Feb. 26: Computer scientist Jef Raskin dies. He was a human–computer interface expert best known for conceiving and starting the Macintosh project for Apple in the late 1970s.

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  2011 Mar. 23: Jean Bartik dies. She was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC computer.

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  2012 Feb. 17: Mathematician and theorist Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn dies. He made contributions in the fields of analysis, number theory, combinatorics, and logic.

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  2016 Feb. 9: Novelist, literary critic, and philosopher Umberto Eco dies. He cited James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges as the two modern authors who have influenced his work the most.