Events in Science & History
16th Century
1500s
16th Century:
The first reflecting telescope, a telescope that gathers light and magnifies an
image primarily through the use of a curved mirror, is discovered by Leonard Digges.
1510s
1513: Machiavelli
publishes The Prince.
1516: Thomas Moore publishes
Utopia.
1517: Martin Luther begins
the Protestant movement.
1519: Ferdinand Magellan
describes the Magellanic Cloud in detail. Ferdinand Magellan commences
the voyage that will end with one of his ships (but not Magellan, who is killed
en route, in the Phillippines) completing the first circumnavigation of the globe.
1520s
1530s
1532: Pizarro
conquers Paris.
1533: Elizabeth I born.
1540s
1540: The
German astronomer Peter Apian records the first European discovery of the fact
that comet tails always point away from the sun.
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1543: Publication of Nicolaus
Copernicus's book On the Revolutions of Heavenly bodies
1550s
1550: Tobacco
growing begins in Spain
1551: Leonard Digges invents
the theodolite. Titian paints Prince Felipe of Spain
1558: Elizabeth I becomes
Queen of England.
1560s
1564: Shakesspeare
born. Horse drawn carriage introduced into England from the continent.
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1568: Mercator introduces
his eponymous map projection.
1570s.
1572: Supenova
observed by Tycho Brahe.
1576: Thomas Digges discards
the Ptolemaic idea of the stars being attracted to a single crystal sphere surrounding
the Earth and suggests that the stars are distributed into an endless infinity
in space
1580s
1581: Galileo
investigates the behaviour of pendulums.
1582: Gregorian calendar,
the calendar widely used on Earth today is introduced by Pope Gregory XIII.
it replaces the less accurate julian calendar. The Gregorian calendar is
introduced first to Catholic countries Shortest year on record
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Probably 1583: Galileo
makes the observation that, provided the length of a pendulum is fixed, the time
it takes for the pendulum to complete one swing is always the same, whether it
swings throught a large arc or a small one.
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1586: Russian expansion
east of the Urals begins. Walter Raleigh introduces tobacco smoking to England.
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1588: Spanish Armada defeated.
1590s
1599: First
performace of Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing.
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- Compiled by D. Brewer - April 2000