1795 in science
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The year 1795 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- December 13 â A meteorite falls to Earth at Wold Newton, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the first to be recognised in modern times.
Botany
- National Botanic Gardens (Ireland) opened by the Royal Dublin Society.
Mathematics
- The 18-year-old Carl Friedrich Gauss develops the basis for the method of least squares analysis.[1]
Medicine
- The British Royal Navy makes the use of lemon juice mandatory to prevent scurvy, largely due to the influence of Gilbert Blane.[2]
Metrology
Paleontology
- Georges Cuvier identifies the fossilised bones of a huge animal found in the Netherlands in 1770 as belonging to an extinct reptile.
Technology
- August 24 â Rev. Samuel Henshall is granted an English patent for a corkscrew.[4][5][6]
- November 30 â Joseph Bramah is granted an English patent for hydraulic machinery, notably the hydraulic press.[7]
Zoology
- Johann Matthäus Bechstein publishes his treatise on songbirds Naturgeschichte der Stubenvögel ("Natural History of Cage Birds") in Gotha.
- Ãtienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire publishes "Histoire des Makis, ou singes de Madagascar", introducing his theory of the unity of organic composition.
Publications
- Leonhard Euler's Letters to a German Princess, On Different Subjects in Physics and Philosophy are first translated into English by Scottish minister Henry Hunter, targeted at women, whom Hunter felt Euler intended to educate.[8][9]
Awards
Births
- January 6 â Anselme Payen, French chemist (died 1878)
- May 5 â Pierre Louis Alphée Cazenave, French dermatologist (died 1877)
- June 24 â Ernst Heinrich Weber, German physician, psychologist (died 1878)
- June 30 â Joseph Bienaimé Caventou, French chemist (died 1877)
- July 5 â Georg Ernst Ludwig Hampe, German pharmacist, botanist and bryologist (died 1880)
- July 10 â Jean-Baptiste Guimet, French industrial chemist (died 1871)
- November 12 â Thaddeus William Harris, American naturalist (died 1856)
- December 8 â Peter Andreas Hansen, Danish astronomer (died 1874)
- December 21
- Francisco Javier Muñiz, Argentine physician and paleontologist (died 1871)
- Jack Russell, English dog breeder (died 1883)
Deaths
- January 21 â Samuel Wallis, English navigator (born 1728)
- March 21 â Giovanni Arduino, Italian geologist (born 1714)
- May 6 â Pieter Boddaert, Dutch physician and naturalist (born 1730)
- June 1 â Pierre-Joseph Desault, French anatomist and surgeon (born 1744)
- June 9 â François Chopart, French surgeon (born 1743)
- June 17 â Gilbert Romme, French politician and mathematician (born 1750)
- June 18 â Marie Marguerite Bihéron, French anatomist (born 1719)
- June 24 â William Smellie, Scottish naturalist and encyclopedist (born 1740)
- July 3 â Antonio de Ulloa, Spanish explorer (born 1716)
- August 14 â George Adams, English scientific instrument maker (born 1750)
- October 1 â Robert Bakewell, English agriculturalist and geneticist (born 1725)
- December 28 â Eugenio Espejo, Ecuadorian medical hygienist, lawyer and journalist (born 1747)