Science & Medicine

  • 1595: Thomas Digges dies in London

    Thomas Digges, an English mathematician and astronomer, died in London on 24 August 1595. He was one of the earliest English supporters of Copernican astronomy. He published the first English account of the Copernican system. Born in Kent around 1546, Digges was the son of the mathematician and surveyor Leonard Digges. After his father’s death,…

  • 1646: John Flamsteed is born in Derbyshire

    John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, was born in Denby, Derbyshire, on 19 August 1646. Flamsteed developed an interest in astronomy while young and, by the early 1670s, corresponded with established scientific figures about his observations. His work became known at a time when the government wanted better astronomical information to improve navigation at sea.…

  • 1766: John Dalton is born in Cumberland

    John Dalton was probably born on 6 September 1766 in Eaglesfield, Cumberland. The date is widely accepted, although his birth was not entered in the Quaker register and some uncertainty remains. Dalton was born into a Quaker family. His father was a weaver, and Dalton received relatively little formal education. He began teaching at a…

  • 1791: Michael Faraday Is Born in Newington Butts

    Michael Faraday was born at Newington Butts, south of the City of London, on 22 September 1791. His father, James, was a blacksmith, and Faraday received little formal education. At 13, he began working for the bookseller and bookbinder George Riebau and later became his apprentice. Faraday read some of the books passing through the…

  • 1844: Patrick Manson is born in Aberdeenshire

    Patrick Manson was born in Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, on 3 October 1844. The Scottish doctor became a key figure in the study of insect-borne diseases and in developing tropical medicine as a distinct medical discipline in Britain. Manson studied medicine at the University of Aberdeen and qualified in 1865. The following year, he took a medical…

  • 1848: Astronomer Margaret Lindsay Huggins is born

    Margaret Lindsay Huggins was born Margaret Lindsay Murray in Dublin on 14 August 1848. She later became a working astronomer in London and a pioneer in using spectroscopy and photography to study stars and other objects in space. She developed an interest in astronomy and photography before marrying astronomer William Huggins in 1875. The couple…

  • 1859: The Great Clock at Westminster begins ticking

    On 31 May 1859, the Great Clock at Westminster began ticking. The Great Bell, commonly called Big Ben, was not heard until July. The clock belonged to the new Palace of Westminster, built after the 1834 fire. It was part of the rebuilding of Parliament, but it also had a public use. It gave time…

  • 1880: John Boyd Orr Is Born in Kilmaurs

    John Boyd Orr was born in Kilmaurs, Ayrshire, on 23 September 1880. He became a doctor and nutrition researcher whose work linked poverty, diet, and health, and he later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign against hunger. Boyd Orr studied at the University of Glasgow and initially trained as a teacher. After working…

  • 1886: A. V. Hill is born in Bristol

    Archibald Vivian Hill was born in Bristol on 26 September 1886. Better known as A. V. Hill, he became a British physiologist whose experiments helped establish a more precise understanding of how muscles work. Hill entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a mathematics student before moving into physiology. His mathematical training became central to his research.…

  • 1897: Ronald Ross finds malaria parasites developing in a mosquito

    Ronald Ross found malaria parasites developing inside a mosquito on 20 August 1897 while working in Secunderabad, India. Ross, a British doctor in the Indian Medical Service, had been investigating the proposed connection between mosquitoes and malaria. French physician Alphonse Laveran had already identified the malaria parasite in human blood, and Patrick Manson had argued…

  • 1910: Florence Nightingale dies aged 90

    Florence Nightingale died in London on 13 August 1910, aged 90. More than half a century had passed since her work during the Crimean War created the public image that remained attached to her name. Nightingale returned to Britain from the Crimea in 1856. Her experience of military hospitals became the basis for a much…

  • 1913: Bernard Lovell is born in Gloucestershire

    Bernard Lovell, the physicist who founded the Jodrell Bank Observatory, was born in Gloucestershire on 31 August 1913. Lovell studied physics at the University of Bristol before joining the University of Manchester in 1936. During the Second World War, he worked on radar, experience that became important when he returned to scientific research after the…

  • 1919: Eddington’s eclipse observations support Einstein’s theory

    On 29 May 1919, British-led teams observed a total solar eclipse from Príncipe, off the west coast of Africa, and Sobral in Brazil. The eclipse gave astronomers a rare chance to photograph stars close to the Sun. The test came from Einstein’s general theory of relativity. His theory predicted that the Sun’s gravity would bend…

  • 1920: Norman Lockyer dies in Devon

    Astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer died in Salcombe Regis, Devon, on 16 August 1920, aged 84. More than half a century earlier, his study of sunlight had helped identify an element that had not yet been found on Earth. Lockyer began his working life as a civil servant at the War Office and pursued astronomy alongside…

  • 1925: Robert Edwards is born

    Robert Geoffrey Edwards was born in Batley, Yorkshire, on 27 September 1925. He became a physiologist whose research helped develop in vitro fertilisation, or IVF. After studying biology at Bangor and completing his doctorate at the University of Edinburgh, Edwards worked at several research institutions before moving to the University of Cambridge in 1963. His…

  • 1929: Peter Higgs is born in Newcastle upon Tyne

    Peter Higgs was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 29 May 1929. His name later became attached to one of the best-known ideas in modern physics. Still, the story began with theoretical work that was not public in any ordinary sense. Higgs studied physics and became closely linked with the University of Edinburgh. In 1964,…

  • 1932: Ronald Ross dies in London

    Sir Ronald Ross died at the Ross Institute in London on 16 September 1932, aged 75. The British doctor spent much of his career studying malaria and was best known for establishing mosquitoes’ role in transmitting the disease. Ross joined the Indian Medical Service in 1881. While working in India, he investigated the theory that…

  • 1942: Valentine Baker Dies Testing the Martin-Baker MB3

    On 12 September 1942, Captain Valentine Baker was killed while test-flying the Martin-Baker MB3, an experimental British fighter, from RAF Wing in Buckinghamshire. Baker was more than the aircraft’s test pilot. He founded the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company with engineer James Martin in the 1930s and tested the aircraft they developed. The MB3 was being developed…

  • 1948: The first Stoke Mandeville Games are held

    On 29 July 1948, sixteen injured servicemen and women took part in a wheelchair archery competition at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire. The event became known as the first Stoke Mandeville Games. It was held on the day the London Olympic Games opened at Wembley. The connection was deliberate. Dr Ludwig Guttmann wanted competitive sport…

  • 1978: Louise Brown is born after IVF treatment

    Louise Brown was born at Oldham and District General Hospital at 11.47 p.m. on 25 July 1978. She was the first child born after being conceived through in vitro fertilisation. Her mother, Lesley Brown, had been unable to conceive because her Fallopian tubes were blocked. This prevented an egg from travelling towards the womb and…

  • 1984: Radio Astronomer Sir Martin Ryle Dies in Cambridge

    Sir Martin Ryle died in Cambridge on 14 October 1984, aged 66. His development of radio telescopes and observational techniques made him a leading figure in British astronomy. Ryle was born in Brighton in 1918 and studied physics at the University of Oxford. During the Second World War, he worked on radar countermeasures at the…

  • 1999: A total solar eclipse crosses Cornwall

    On 11 August 1999, a total solar eclipse crossed Cornwall and part of South Devon. At about 11.12 a.m. British Summer Time, the Moon completely covered the Sun along a narrow path across the South West. Elsewhere in Britain, the eclipse was partial. It was the first total solar eclipse visible from mainland Britain since…

  • 2004: Maurice Wilkins dies in London

    Maurice Wilkins died in London on 5 October 2004, aged 87. The British biophysicist played an important experimental role in research that established DNA’s double-helix structure. Wilkins was born in New Zealand in 1916 but moved to England with his family as a child. He studied physics at Cambridge and Birmingham, worked on radar research…