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Exploration

• March – Third voyage of James Cook: English explorer Captain Cook discovers Mangaia and Atiu in the Cook Islands.

Mathematics

• Leonhard Euler introduces the symbol i to represent the square root of −1.¹

Technology

• probable date – Thomas Arnold of London produces the first watch ("Arnold 36") to be called a chronometer.²³

Awards

• Copley Medal: John Mudge⁴

Births

• February 12 – Bernard Courtois, French chemist (died 1838)
• April 30 – Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician (died 1855)
• May 4 – Louis Jacques Thénard, French chemist (died 1857)
• May 18 – John George Children, English chemist, mineralogist and entomologist (died 1852)
• August 14 – Hans Christian Ørsted, Danish physicist (died 1851)

Deaths

• September 22 – John Bartram, naturalist and explorer considered the "father of American botany" (born 1699)
• September 25 – Johann Heinrich Lambert, Swiss polymath (born 1728)
• December 7 – Albrecht von Haller, Swiss anatomist and physiologist (born 1708)
• Celia Grillo Borromeo, Italian scientist and mathematician (born 1684)

References

1. Crilly, Tony (2007). 50 Mathematical Ideas You Really Need to Know. London: Quercus. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-84724-008-8. 978-1-84724-008-8 ↩

2. An account kept during thirteen months in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich of the going of a pocket chronometer made on a new construction by John Arnold. London. 1780. ↩

3. "chronometer, n.". Oxford English Dictionary online version (2nd ed.). 1989. Retrieved 2012-03-09. (subscription or participating institution membership required) http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/32606 ↩

4. "Copley Medal | British scientific award". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 21 July 2020. https://www.britannica.com/science/Copley-Medal ↩