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Antonine Lavoiser discovered, to his dismay, that when a diamond burned, after turning fiery red, it vanished into thin air, leaving no trace, no ash. He repeated the experiment in a vacuum and found that pure graphite remained. The two materials, diamond and graphite, were

Joseph Fourier: Fourier transforms

Second edition of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica.

In a letter to Richard Bentley, Isaac Newton stated that with an infinite number of stars, they would not have clustered together due to gravitational pull, since they would have no central point; today we know that this is wrong because an infinite number of

Isaac Newton, in a letter to John Locke, recalls the close call he had previously faced when, staring for hours alternately at the sun and then at the darkness to observe the images produced on the retina, he had been temporarily blinded. He had to

Queen Maria Beatrice d’Este of England arrives in Calais, France and writes to the Sun King, Louis XIV, asking to take refuge under his protection.

Vienna. 5:00 AM. The Allied army begins to descend from the heights west of Vienna. The slope is mostly steep and rocky, making the task especially difficult for the cavalry. In the front ranks are enormous white flags with a red cross, representing the avenging

Vienna. The advance of the Allied troops begins to push the Turks back from the hills overlooking Vienna to the west. A front is formed, facing the Ottoman positions from the west. Starting from the Danube and proceeding west are the contingents of Lorraine, Waldeck,

The imperial family of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, leaves Vienna, facing the advancing Ottoman horde. The news causes panic in the city. Sixty thousand people flee in disarray.

Ole Romer notes that when Jupiter is in opposition to the Sun relative to Earth, the cosmic clock formed by Jupiter’s satellite Io is 22 minutes behind when the planet is in conjunction. He therefore calculates the speed of light at 220,000 km/s, with an

Giovanni Domenico Cassini, former professor at the University of Bologna, becomes a French citizen

Despite the massive fortifications built by the Venetians at various points on Crete (in almost half a millennium of rule), the island fell into the hands of the Turks.

Jean Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s minister of state, abolishes the teaching of astrology at the University of Paris.

After rum’s development in the Caribbean, the drink’s popularity spread to the American colonies. To support demand for the spirit, the first distillery in the colonies was founded in 1664 on present-day Staten Island. Three years later, a distillery opened in Boston, Massachusetts. Rum production

Galileo Galilei: concept of breaking load of materials

French philosopher Descartes publishes “Discourse on the Method”

Serious plague epidemic in England

John Locke was born in Somerset, to a small landowner who had fought in the Parliamentarian cavalry.

An eruption of Vesuvius destroys six towns and kills around 4,000 people.

The first submarine is built (made of wood, with oars and with emerging air tubes)

Galileo Galilei declares his adherence to the Copernican theory.

An Anglican pastor introduced the multiplication symbol “x”.

A supernova observed by Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei renews questions about Aristotle’s static model; it is one of two supernovae that have appeared in the vicinity of our star in the last few centuries.

In Europe, there are approximately two hundred autonomous state formations. Two centuries earlier, there were about a thousand.

Pope Clement VIII’s advisors ask him to ban the “bitter invention of Satan,” or the coffee brought by the infidel Ottoman Turks; but the Pope, instead, declares it acceptable to the Roman Catholic Church.

Goa, India. Dutchman Jan Huygen van Linschoten is the first Dutchman to discover Chinese porcelain. He does so as part of a Portuguese mission to Goa. He will write a book, “Itinerary,” which will inspire generations of Dutch people to travel.

Until 2023, the earliest known appearance of the decimal point was in the interpolation column of a table of trigonometric sines in Christopher Clavius’s Astrolabium (1593). This is a curious place to introduce such a significant new idea, and the fact that Clavius never exploited

Grand Duke Ferdinand I of Tuscany granted a privilege to encourage the settlement of Jews and New Christians in the cities of Pisa and Livorno. Within a few years, a strong and thriving Sephardic community would form.

Cadiz. A raid by ships led by Francis Drake, supported by Queen Elizabeth of England, destroys a large portion of the fleet stationed in the city and seizes or throws overboard most of the supplies accumulated in preparation for the much-anticipated invasion of England.

Just five years after its completion, the sultan ordered the complete demolition of the Takiyuddin astronomical observatory. Another observatory would not be built in Istanbul until 1868!

Venice abandons the gold standard and switches to silver. The influx of enormous quantities of American silver into Western Europe facilitates the liquidation of Venice’s enormous debt, which is eliminated in 1584.

The Po Valley becomes part of the Spanish Empire

Michelangelo Buonarroti frescoes the Last Judgement

Dutchwoman Gemma Frisio (Jemme Reinerszoon, called Frisio, meaning “of Friesland,” the northern part of the Netherlands) pioneered cartography. A graduate of Leuven (now Belgium), in his treatise “Libellus de Locorum describendorum Ratione,” he explained how to use trigonometry to draw precise maps. This also gave

Inca Empire. The smallpox epidemic among the Incas also kills Emperor Huayna Capac and most of his court. This precipitates a civil war, which will lead to the rise of Atahuallpa, who will fall to the sword of Francisco Pizarro.

Aztec Empire. The smallpox epidemic among the Aztecs also kills Emperor Cuitlahuac, who succeeded Montezuma.

The Ottoman conquest of Egypt forced the Portuguese to confront a formidable naval and commercial power, reopening the spice trade, previously a Portuguese monopoly.

Rome. The Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling painted with great effort and talent by Michelangelo, is opened to the public.

Milan. The French lose their grip on the city, which they had held for 13 years. After the death of Charles d’Amboise, governor of Milan, in 1511, the Sforza family is now ready to regain control. Leonardo da Vinci then leaves the city, having been

Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid, believing he had landed in Asia, not a new continent. He was first buried in Valladolid, then transferred to Seville, Santo Domingo, Havana, Cuba, and finally, apparently, to the Cathedral of Seville in 1898.

After Pisa became an independent and free republic in 1494, the Florentines were unable to breach Pisa’s walls, nor were they even able to block its trade, as the Arno River gave it access to the sea. Columbus had just returned from the Americas, and

The year is 1500. There are 500 million Homo sapiens in the world, producing $250 billion in today’s dollars and consuming 13 trillion calories. Five centuries later, there are 7 billion Homo sapiens, producing $60 trillion and consuming 1.5 trillion calories. The population has increased

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola dies, perhaps poisoned

Seventy-five million people live in the Americas. The city of Cahokia, on the Mississippi plain, is home to approximately 20,000 people. Tenochtitlan is home to 250,000. In 1492, Europe was home to 60 million people. Over the next three centuries, approximately two and a half

Plague epidemic in the Lower Adriatic: Brindisi, Trani, Vlora.

Otranto. Ahmed Gedik Pasha landed in Italy and conquered Otranto on the orders of Mehmed II, massacring its population. He prepared to march on Rome as soon as reinforcements arrived at his beachhead. The Pope considered fleeing, but Mehmed II died on May 3, 1481,

Crimea. Hajji Giray, ruler of the Crimean Qantha, which he created from the ashes of the Mongol Golden Horde, dies. The Crimean Qantha would survive until 1783. But the Tatars, as the Mongols of Crimea and Russia became known, would survive even this. Not even

Plague epidemic in Italy: Ragusa, Brindisi, Lecce, Lucca, Pienza, Bergamo.

In 10,000 BC, the world was home to thousands of civilizations, all but or completely isolated from one another. By 1450 AD, their numbers had declined dramatically, and more than 90% of the world’s population lived in a single macro-civilization in Afro-Eurasia. The remaining 10%

The Portuguese began deporting black Africans to the Americas. From 1500 to 1870, there were 12 million.

The symbols “p” for + and “m” for minus were introduced, while around the same time the symbols “+” and “-” were also invented but only to indicate excess or underweight in commercial cargo.

The Mongol Tamerlane arrives in Georgia and devastates it. Aleppo in Syria is also conquered and sacked.

Etowah Valley, between Georgia and Tennessee, North America. The city of Etowah, founded in 1200 and the capital of a sort of local kingdom, was sacked and its sacred sites desecrated. It was then abandoned and reoccupied several times, but never permanently. We find ourselves

There are (only) 4.5 million people living in England. In 1200, there were 2.2 million.

Modena. Rainaldo Bonacolsi (known as “Passerino”), a Ghibelline despite some disagreements with Henry VII of Luxembourg, took part in the long siege of Brescia and was rewarded with the imperial vicariate of Mantua, along with his brother Bonaventura.

Modena. Henry VII of Luxembourg is welcomed triumphantly by the most prestigious families of Modena: Boschetti, Pio, and Pico. Modena is under the protection of the Empire. The imperial vicar is Giodalosto de’ Vercellesi. At the end of 1311, the vicarship is then offered to

Milan. Henry VII of Luxembourg is crowned Emperor.

Zara rebels (for the sixth time) against Venice, but the revolt is vigorously suppressed at birth.

Venice. The Guelph conspiracy (a pro-Pontiff faction) between Tiepolo and Guerini. Tiepolo’s conspirators, in a poorly coordinated attack, plunder the public treasury at Rialto, while Badoer is prevented from leaving in time due to a storm. Querini’s column reaches St. Mark’s Square first, but Querini

Ferrara returned to papal control, with a plebiscite in favor of the Holy See. Pope Clement V became pope. Papal rule, however, was short-lived: in 1317, when a vicar of Rome killed a young Ferrarese man from the Bocchimpani family, a revolt broke out. On

Cockchafer invasion in Austria, reported in the Annals of Melk. Orchards and vineyards were devastated for two consecutive years.

Inferno, Divine Comedy. When Dante Alighieri describes Hell in the Divine Comedy, he draws inspiration from his visit to the Venice Arsenal, then the largest industrial facility in Europe and probably the world. It was, in fact, the most grandiose spectacle of intense industrial activity

Modena. Azzo VIII is expelled by a conspiracy of the extrinsic families (the families expelled from Modena). Ghiberto da Correggio, Guelph lord and tyrant of Parma, leads the revolt and expels Azzo VIII from Reggio. Thus, the Respublica mutinensis is born, amidst a climate of

France mints silver groschen, following in the footsteps of Venice and Florence. Flanders, England, and Bohemia soon follow.

Central Asia. The city of Bukhara is conquered by the Persians, who wrest it from the Mongols. The city is ravaged a second time a generation later.

China. During the grueling Mongol siege of the city, Khan Mongke dies. (There are four versions: cholera, dysentery, an arrow in battle, or a direct catapult hit.)

First Venetian-Genoese War. The triggering event occurs in Acre: the killing of a Genoese by a Venetian. The Genoese attack and pillage the Venetian quarter, and a battle ensues over a monastery between the two quarters. The Templars side with the Venetians, and the local

Richard the Lionheart with his troops descends from Acre to Jaffa and defeats Saladin’s army at Arsuf. Having reached Jerusalem undisturbed, he decides not to take the city and to retreat: the Third Crusade ends with an agreement between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin on

Frederick Barbarossa, mindful of his disastrous experience in Italy the previous year, had no intention of undertaking another long siege of Milan. This time, he decided to systematically devastate the Milanese countryside during harvest time. It was the same strategy he had implemented three years

The French scholar Gerbert of Aurilliac was elected Pope under the name of Sylvester II; he had learned the Hindu-Arabic numeral system from the Moors of Spain and his position as Pope allowed him to promote it throughout Europe.

The first evidence of state organization is in West Africa. In Mesopotamia, the transition occurred a full 4,700 years earlier, while in Mesoamerica it occurred 1,300 years earlier, and finally in China, Southeast Asia, and the Andes 1,000 years earlier.

Damascus, Syria. The gold coins of Abd al-Malik depict Abd al-Malik, the most important Muslim leader since Muhammad. He had such terrible breath that he was called “the fly killer.” He was the ninth caliph. His depiction on coins is the first known depiction of

Alaric dies of fever; he is 40 years old

Rome reached by the Visigoths

Picts, Angles, Saxons take Britain, but groups of Briton-Romans resist in Wales

Rome. Alaric, after besieging the city, is persuaded to retreat upon payment of a large ransom: 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silk robes, 3,000 pounds of pepper, and (strangely) 4,000 red furs…

Alaric, leading the Goths, enters Italy (Vandals and Franks are entering from the North-West)

A series of barbarian incursions devastated Italy, Gaul, and Spain. The most spectacular episode was Alaric’s siege and capture of Rome in 410.

Mainz: invasion from the Rhine of the Germans (Burgunds, Franks, Alemanni, Goths, Saxons) fleeing in turn from the Huns Ostrogoths enter the Balkans

Modena. A heavy marble sarcophagus was purchased in Verona for the remains of Geminiano. It remained closed until 1106, then reopened in 1184, and finally opened on November 5, 1955.