Timeline to 1799

-3000 The abacus is invented in the Tigris-Euphrates valley
~1800 AD - A line of canon from Buffalo to NYC used to announce Gov. DeWitt Clinton's inaugural trip through the Erie Canal. It took 80 minutes.
-1700 Egyptian mathematicians employ fractions
1200 BC - Homer talks about signal fires in the Illiad.
700 BC to 300 AD - Carrier pigeons used in Olympic games. Voice telegraphs used hundreds of years BC through the Middle Ages and in the Canary Islands today.
-586 Thales of Miletus predicts a solar eclipse in 585 B.C.
-530 Pythagoras studies propositional geometry and vibrating lyre strings
-380 Hippocrates begins the scientific study of medicine
-370 Eudoxus states the method of exhaustion
-300 Euclid studies geometry as a deductive system in Elements and states the law of reflection in Catoptrics
-230 Archimedes writes The Sand-Reckoner and computes $\pi$ to two decimal places
-200 Apollonius writes On Conic Sections and names the ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola
-200 Eratosthenes roughly determines the radius of the Earth
-130 Hipparchus creates the magnitude scale of stellar apparent luminosities and discovers the precession of the equinoxes
-46 Julius Caesar orders the development of the Julian calendar
50 Cleomedes studies refraction
60 Hero of Alexandria writes Metrica, Mechanics, Catoptrics, and Pneumatics
130 Claudius Ptolemy tabulates angles of refraction for several media
250 Diophantus writes Arithmetica, the first systematic treatise on algebra
450 Tsu Ch'ung-Chih and Tsu K\^eng-Chih compute $\pi$ to six decimal places
550 Hindu mathematicians give a numeral representation to zero
1054 Chinese and American Indian astronomers observe the Crab supernova explosion
1202 Leonardo Fibonacci demonstrates the utility of Arabic numerals in his Book of the Abacus
1248 Roger Bacon writes formulas for gunpowder in his Epistola
1303 First recorded use of spectacles
1420 Al-Kashi computes “pi” to sixteen decimal places
1451 Nicholas of Cusa invents concave lens spectacles to treat nearsightedness
1480 Leonardo da Vinci describes a workable parachute
1490 Leonardo da Vinci describes capillary action
1492 Leonardo da Vinci describes a flying machine
1502 Peter Heinlein builds the first pocketwatch
1512 Nicholas Copernicus first states his heliocentric theory in Commentariolus
1520 Scipione del Ferro has a method for solving certain types of cubic equations
1521 Ferdinand Magellan observes the Magellanic Clouds during his circumnavigating expedition
1535 Niccolo Fontana Tartaglia has a method for solving certain types of cubic equations
1540 Michael Servetus discovers pulmonary circulation
1540 Lodovico Ferrari solves the quartic equation
1543 Andreas Vesalius publishes De Fabrica Corporis Humani which corrects Greek medical errors and revolutionizes medicine
1543 Nicholas Copernicus shows that his heliocentric theory simplifies planetary motion tables in De Revolutionibus de Orbium Coelestium
1546 Gerolamo Fracastoro proposes that epidemic diseases are caused by transferable seedlike entities
1559 Realdo Colombo discusses the circulation of blood in detail
1569 Gerardus Mercator issues the first Mercator projection map
1572 Tycho Brahe discovers his supernova in Cassiopeia
1576 Thomas Digges modifies the Copernican system by removing its outer edge and replacing the edge with a
star filled unbounded space
1577 Tycho Brahe uses parallax to prove that comets are distant entities and not atmospheric phenomena
1581 Galileo Galilei notices the timekeeping property of the pendulum
1582 Pope Gregory XIII introduces the Gregorian calendar
1588 AD - Arrival of the Spanish Armada announced by signal fires
1589 Galileo Galilei uses balls rolling on inclined planes to show that different weights fall with the same acceleration
1590 Zacharias Janssen invents the microscope
1592 Galileo Galilei builds a crude thermometer using air in a tube
1596 Ludolf van Ceulen computes $\pi$ to twenty decimal places
1603 Johann Bayer develops his system of star nomenclature
1604 Johannes Kepler's supernova in Serpens is observed
1604 Johannes Kepler describes how the eye focuses light
1608 Hans Lippershey tries to patent his refracting telescope
1609 Johannes Kepler states his first two empirical laws of planetary motion
1609 Galileo Galilei builds his first telescope
1610 Galileo Galilei discovers Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, and Io
1610 Galileo Galilei sees Saturn's rings but does not recognize that they are rings
1610 Johannes Kepler uses the dark night sky to argue for a finite universe
1611 M. de Dominis explains the rainbow
1611 Johannes Kepler discovers total internal reflection, a small angle refraction law, and thin lens optics
1613 Galileo Galilei uses sunspots to demonstrate the rotation of the sun
1614 John Napier discusses Napierian logarithms in Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio
1617 John Napier discusses the Napier's bones calculating method in Rabdologia
1617 Henry Briggs discusses decimal logarithms in Logarithmorum Chilias Prima
1619 Johannes Kepler explains the direction of cometary tails by postulating a solar wind
1619 Johannes Kepler states his third empirical law of planetary motion
1620 Francis Bacon notices the jigsaw fit of the opposite shores of the Atlantic Ocean
1620 Francis Bacon analyzes the scientific method in his Great Instauration of Learning
1621 Willebrord Snell states his law of refraction
1622 William Oughtred invents the slide rule
1628 William Harvey further studies blood circulation and compares the heart to a pump
1629 Pierre de Fermat develops a rudimentary differential calculus
1637 Ren\'e Descartes further develops and tests the theory of rainbows
1637 Pierre de Fermat claims to have proven Fermat's Last Theorem
1638 Galileo Galilei publishes Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
1640 Ismael Bullialdus suggests an inverse-square gravitational force law
1642 Blaise Pascal makes an adding machine
1643 Evangelista Torricelli invents the mercury barometer
1645 Otto von Guericke builds the first vacuum pump
1654 Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat develop the theory of probability
1655 John Wallis writes Arithmetica Infinitorum
1655 Giovanni Cassini discovers Jupiter's great red spot
1656 Christian Huygens identifies Saturn's rings as rings and discovers Titan
1656 Christian Huygens builds the first highly accurate pendulum clock
1657 Pierre de Fermat introduces the principle of least time into optics
1658 Jan Swammerdam observes red blood cells under a microscope
1661 James Gregory proposes a reflecting telescope
1665 Giovanni Cassini determines the rotational speeds of Jupiter, Mars, and Venus
1665 Robert Hooke identifies cells
1665 Isaac Newton deduces the inverse-square gravitational force law from the ``falling'' of the moon
1665 Isaac Newton invents his calculus
1668 Isaac Newton constructs the first reflecting telescope
1668 Francesco Redi disproves theories of the spontaneous generation of living organisms
1668 John Wallis suggests the law of conservation of momentum
1672 Jean Richer and Giovanni Cassini measure the astronomical unit to within 7\%
1672 Giovanni Cassini discovers Rhea
1673 Gottfried Leibnitz invents his calculus
1674 Anton van Leuwenhoek invents the compound microscope
1675 Ole R\"omer uses the orbital mechanics of Jupiter's moons to estimate the speed of light
1675 Isaac Newton invents an algorithm for the computation of functional roots
1676 Anton van Leuwenhoek observes protozoa
1678 Christian Huygens states his principle of wavefront sources
1683 Anton van Leuwenhoek observes bacteria
1684 Isaac Newton proves that planets moving under an inverse-square force law will obey Kepler's laws
1687 Isaac Newton publishes his Principia Mathematica
1690 Jacques Bernoulli solves the isochrone problem
1691 Jean Bernoulli solves the catenary problem
1696 Guillaume de L'H\^opital states his rule for the examination of indeterminate forms
1697 Jean Bernoulli solves the brachistochrone problem
1698 Thomas Savery builds a steam-powered water pump for pumping water out of mines
1701 Giacomo Pylarini gives the first smallpox inoculations
1704 Isaac Newton publishes Opticks
1705 Edmond Halley predicts the periodicity of Halley's comet
1712 Thomas Newcomen builds a piston-and-cylinder steam-powered water pump for pumping water out of mines
1712 Brook Taylor develops Taylor's series'
1714 Gabriel Fahrenheit invents the mercury in glass thermometer
1716 Edmond Halley builds a diving bell
1718 Edmond Halley discovers stellar proper motions
1720 Edmond Halley puts forth an early form of Olbers' paradox
1728 James Bradley discovers the aberration of starlight and uses it to determine the speed of light to within 5\%
1733 Chester Moor Hall invents the achromatic lens refracting telescope
1733 Geralamo Saccheri studies what geometry would be like if Euclid's fifth postulate were false
1733 John Kay patents the flying shuttle loom
1737 John Harrison presents the first stable nautical chronometer, thereby allowing for precise longitude determination while at sea
1738 Daniel Bernoulli examines fluid flow in Hydrodynamica
1740 Jacques de Vaucanson demonstrates his clockwork powered carriage
1742 Colin Maclaurin discovers his spheroids
1744 Jean-Phillipe de Cheseaux puts forth an early form of Olbers' paradox
1747 Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis applies minimum principles to mechanics
1748 Maria Agnesi discusses analysis in Instituzioni Analitiche ad Uso della Gioventu Italiana
1750 Thomas Wright discusses galaxies and the shape of the Milky Way
1752 Lightning Rod
Benjamin Franklin's electricity experiments lead him to a valuable application -- the lightning rod, which when placed at the apex of a barn, church steeple, or other structure, conducts lightning bolts harmlessly into the ground.

1752 Benjamin Franklin shows that lightning is electricity
1758 John Dolland reinvents the achromatic lens
1761 Joseph Black discovers that ice absorbs heat without changing temperature when melting
1763 Claudius Aymand performs the first successful appendectomy
1766 Titius of Wittenberg finds the Titius-Bode rule
1766 Henry Cavendish discovers and studies hydrogen
1767 Joseph Priestly proposes an electrical inverse-square law
1769 James Watt patents his first improved steam engine
1771 Joseph Priestly discovers that plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen
1772 Johann Bode publicizes the Titius-Bode rule
1776 Submarine
David Bushnell's "Turtle" submerges by taking water into its tanks and reverses the process to rise. It moves by means of a hand crank propeller. The "Turtle" is used in an attack on Lord Howe's Flagship "Eagle," but attempts to attach a mine to the Eagle's hull fail.

1778 Carl Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier discover that air is composed mostly of nitrogen and oxygen
1781 Joseph Priestly creates water by igniting hydrogen and oxygen
1781 William Herschel discovers Uranus
1783 Joseph Montgolfier and \'Etienne Montgolfier launch the first hot air balloons
1784 Charles Messier publishes his catalog of nebulae
1784 Edward Piggot discovers the first Cepheid variable star
1785 Charles Coulomb introduces the inverse-square law of electrostatics
1786 Luigi Galvani discovers ``animal electricity'' and postulates that animal bodies are storehouses of electricity
1788 Joseph Lagrange presents his equations of motion in Mechanique Analytique
1790 First U.S. Patent
The United States issues its first patent to William Pollard of Philadelphia. His machine roves and spins cotton.

1791 - The Chappe brothers, in France, were in their teens and were going to schools some distance apart but visible to each other. They obtained permission to set up a signaling system so they could send messages to each other. Their semaphore system consisted of movable arms on a pole whose positions denoted letters of the alphabet.
1793 - The Louvre opened as a public museum in Paris on November 8, 1793, after more than two centuries as a royal palace.
1793 - The Chappe brothers established the first commercial semaphore system between two locations near Paris. Napoleon thought this was a great idea. Soon there were semaphore signaling systems covering the main cities of France. Semaphore signaling spread to Italy, Germany and Russia. Thousands of men were employed manning the stations. Speed: about 15 characters per minute. Code books came into play so that whole sentences could be represented by a few characters. Semaphores weren't very successful in England because of the fog and smog caused by the Industrial Revolution. Claude Chappe headed France's system for 30 years and then was "retired" when a new administration came into power. There were semaphore systems in the U.S., especially from Martha's Vineyard (an island near Cape Cod) and Boston, reporting to Boston's Custom House on the movement of sailing ships. This was also true around New York City and San Francisco. Samuel F.B. Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph, reportedly saw the semaphore system in operation in Europe. The last operational semaphore system went out of business in 1860. It was located in Algeria.
1793 Claude Chappe establishes the first long-distance semaphore telegraph line
1794 Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin -- 1794 Cotton Gin -- Eli Whitney patents his machine to comb and deseed bolls of cotton. His invention makes possible a revolution in the cotton industry and the rise of "King Cotton" as the main cash crop in the South, but will never make him rich. Instead of buying his machine, farmers built bogus versions of their own.

1795 Pierre Laplace discusses Newtonian black holes
1796 Edward Jenner develops a smallpox vaccination
1796 Pierre Laplace states his nebular hypothesis for the formation of the solar system from a nebula of gas and dust
1797 Interchangeable Parts
Eli Whitney contracts to manufacture 10,000 muskets for the U.S. Army. At the time, an entire musket would be made by a single person, without standardized measurements. Whitney divided the labor into several discrete steps and standardized parts to make them interchangeable.

1798 Henry Cavendish measures the gravitational constant and determines the mass of the Earth
1798 Count Rumford has the idea that heat is a form of energy
1799 Karl Gauss proves that every polynomial equation has a solution among the complex numbers