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Astronomy

• Christiaan Huygens, in his posthumously published book Kosmotheoros, argues that other planets in the Solar System could contain extraterrestrial life, starting a debate that extends into the 21st century.

Exploration

• November – HMS Paramour sets sail under the command of Edmond Halley on the first purely scientific voyage by an English naval vessel, to investigate magnetic declination.

Technology

• January 11 – April 21 – Tsar Peter the Great of Russia (incognito as 'Peter Mikhailov') visits England as part of his Grand Embassy, making a particular study of shipbuilding.¹
• July 25 – English engineer Thomas Savery obtains a patent for "A new invention for raising of water... by the impellent force of fire", a steam pump.²
• November 14 – First Eddystone Lighthouse illuminated,³ the first rock lighthouse in Europe.⁴
• The piano is invented by Italian Bartolomeo Cristofori, originally named the "piano et forte" (meaning "soft and loud").
• A metronome is developed as a machine to measure musical tempo.

Events

• November – Tani Jinzan, astronomer and calendar scholar, observes a fire destroy Tosa in Japan at the same time as a Leonid meteor shower, taking it as evidence to reinforce belief in the "Theory of Areas".

Births

• February – Colin Maclaurin, Scottish mathematician (died 1746)
• February 16 – Pierre Bouguer, French mathematician (died 1758)
• March 26 – Václav Prokop Diviš, Czech theologian and natural scientist (died 1765)
• May 8 – Henry Baker, English naturalist (died 1774)
• July 17 – Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, French mathematician (died 1759)
• November 28 – Charlotta Frölich, Swedish agronomist (died 1770)

Deaths

• August 18 – Nicolas Venette, French physician, sexologist and writer (born 1633)⁵
• November 4 – Rasmus Bartholin, Danish scientist (born 1625)

References

1. "January 28th". Chambers' Book of Days. Archived from the original on 17 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20071217212219/http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/jan/28.htm ↩

2. Carlyle, E. I. (2004). "Savery, Thomas (1650?–1715)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/24733. Retrieved 2011-11-05. (subscription or UK public library membership required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/24733 ↩

3. Majdalany, Fred (1959). The Red Rocks of Eddystone. London: Longmans. p. 49. ↩

4. "Advances in Aids to Navigation Technology" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-02. Retrieved 2011-07-14. https://web.archive.org/web/20110602005724/http://www.trinityhouse.co.uk/pdfs/info-sheets/Advances_in_AtoN.pdf ↩

5. BnF 12108388m /wiki/BNF_(identifier) ↩