Other Considerations

1701
Yale University is founded as the Collegiate School of America, becoming Yale College in 1718

1702
The first daily newspaper, London's "Daily Courant", is started

1732
First Issue of "Poor Richard's Almanack" is published by Benjamin Franklin (b Boston, MA, Jan 17, 1706)

1737
Pierre-Simon Fournier introduced the point system for measuring type sizes

1743
Statesman and scholar Thomas Jefferson b Shadwell, VA, Apr 13; while his investigations of plant breeding, fossils, and Native American burial sites reveal no new scientific concepts of significance, he remains the closest the US has come to having a scientist-president

1744
The Roman Catholic Church, while leaving Galileo's "Dialogue concerning the two chief world systems" on the Index of Prohibited Books, allows it to be printed as long as Galileo's recantation of Copernican theory is included in the same volume

1749
"Observations on man" by David Hartley (b Yorkshire, England, Aug 30, 1705), the first work in English to use the term "psychology," is a systematic attempt to interpret the phenomena of mind by the theory of association

1751
The calendar in Britain is altered, with Jan 1 becoming the beginning of year

1755
The University of Moscow is founded

1765
James Watt (b Greenock, Scotland, Jan 19, 1736) builds a model of a steam engine in which the condenser is separated from the cylinder so that steam acts on the piston directly, resulting in a power source six times as effective as the Newxomen engine

1770
Paul, Baron d'Holbach's "Le systeme de la nature ' (Nature's system), published under the pseudonym "Mirabaud,: is an open attack on Christianity and an affirmation of materialism and atheism

1776
The American colonies of Britain declare their independence

1783 Flight
Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier came from a family of paper makers, so it should come as no surprise that Joseph's idea of a hot-air balloon would be realized in paper. In their first successful experiment with a full-sized balloon (the balloon traveled a mile and a half), the fire suspended below the balloon lit the paper upon landing and the balloon burned. Word of this experiment, conducted in Annonay, quickly reached Paris. A public fund was set up in Paris to have a local scientist, Jacques Charles, duplicate the Montgolfier feat.

1785
Jean-Pierre Blanchard (b Les Andelys, France, Jul 4, 1753) and Dr. J. Jeffries make the first balloon crossing of the English Channel

1786
The first experiments with gas lighting are conducted by the English and Germans

1789
The Bastille prison in Paris is stormed by a French mob on Jul 14; this event is generally considered the beginning of the French Revolution

The United States introduces its first patent law

1794
Marie-Jean de Condorcet's "History of the progress of the human spirit" expresses his belief in the perfectability of humanity

1798
Pierre-Simon Laplace predicts the existence of black holes

1799
Soldiers in Napoleon's army, digging near the Rosetta branch of the Nile, uncover a stone engraved in three different scripts; the Rosetta Stone turns out to be the key to unlocking Egyptian hieroglyphics