1500-1699
From CSI Wiki Farm
- c. 1500 Leonardo da Vinci (Italy, 1452-1519) draws a calculating device or ratio machine in "Codex Madrid" (discovered 1967) (similar to one in "Codex Atlanticus"). Its function is uncertain. A replica was built in 1968.
- 1564 The first catalog of books for sale at the exhibition in Frankfurt.
- The Catholic Queen Mary Tudor capped off a 120-year monarchical struggle to censor printing presses in England by issuing a charter to the Stationers' Company, a guild of printers. Only members of the company could legally produce books. The only books they would print were approved by the British Crown.
John Napier
- The Catholic Queen Mary Tudor capped off a 120-year monarchical struggle to censor printing presses in England by issuing a charter to the Stationers' Company, a guild of printers. Only members of the company could legally produce books. The only books they would print were approved by the British Crown.
- 1567 Michael Stifel (1487-1567) invents logarithms, independent of Napier, and uses the square root symbol.
- 1569 The first large exhibition for machinery is held at the city hall of Nuremberg, Germany.
- 1588 Arrival of the Spanish Armada announced by signal fires.
- 1614 John Napier (1550-1617), Scotland, describes his invention of logarithm in his Mirifici logarithmorum canonis descriptio, published 1614 (cf 1567). The slide rule is invented just a few years later. (cf 1632)
- 1620 Denmark's first chime with 19 bells is installed in the royal castle Frederiksborg, imported from The Netherlands by king Christian IV. (cf 1647)
- 1623 Wilhelm Schickard (1592-1635), Tübingen in Württemberg in Germany, designs a calculating clock, a machine for addition and subtraction of six decimal digit numbers. Overflow is indicated by a ringing bell. The lost design documents were found in 1935, lost again in WWII, and found again in 1956. A replica built in 1960 was operational.
- 1632 Slide rule developed by William Oughtred (1575 - 1660). The slide rule was used by engineers through the 1970's, when it was replaced by electronic calculators.
- 1637 February, the burst of the tulip bulb investment bubble in Holland.
- 1642 or 1644 Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) designs the "Pascaline" calculator for adding (not subtracting) numbers of five decimal digits.
- 1647 Denmark's first carillon is installed in Helligåndskirken church in Copenhagen, imported from The Netherlands by king Christian IV.
- 1650 The first public coffee house in Europe is opened in Oxford, England. Within a few decades, coffee houses spring up in major European cities. Coffee was known in Europe since the late 16th century, but used mostly as a medicine. Bennett Alan Weinberg, Bonnie K Bealer, The World of Caffeine. The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug, Routledge, 2001
A replica of Leibniz's "stepped reckoner" - 1665 The first academic journals are published by learned societies: Journal des Scavants in Paris, and Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society of London.
- 1668 Sir Samuel Morland (1625-1695), England, designs a "non-decimal" adding machine suited for the English currency units. The carry is noted on a scale, from where the operator has to transfer them manually.
- 1674 Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716), Leipzig in Germany, develops the "stepped reckoner", designed by Olivier, Paris. A movable carriage allows multiplication of five by twelve digit numbers. Demonstrated to the Royal Society in London in 1676.
- 1688 Dutch merchants start the first coffee growing plants on the island Java. (cf 1650, 1995)
