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1601
- 1700
1609
AD: The Douay Old Testament is added to the Rheimes New
Testament (of 1582) Making the First Complete English
Catholic Bible; Translated from the Latin Vulgate (80
Books).
1611
AD: The King James Bible Printed; Originally with All 80
Books. The Apocrypha was Officially Removed in 1885
Leaving Only 66 Books.
1616-Italian philosopher Lucilio Vanini suggests that humans evolved from apes. He will be burned alive for this suggestion three years later.
1620-Francis Bacon publishes Novum Organum, stressing the importance of experimentation.
1630 - John Billington, one of the first pilgrims to
land in America was hanged for murder -- becoming the
first criminal to be executed in the American colonies
1650-Irish archbishop James Ussher calculates the date of creation, based on the ages of biblical prophets. Using his calculations, future
theologians will identify the date of creation as on October 26, 4004 BC.
1659-John Tradescant deeds his family treasures to fellow collector Elias Ashmole. Ashmole will later donate the collection to Oxford University, stipulating that a separate building is to be constructed for it.
1663-German physicist Otto von Guericke pieces together bones from different species to make a fossil "unicorn".
1665-Robert Hooke publishes Micrographia showing views of natural objects, including fossils, available with the newly invented microscope.
1665-Le Journal des Savants is first published in France, and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is first published in England.
1667-Niels Stensen dissects the head of a giant white shark and for the first time correctly identifies shark teeth, previously thought to be serpent tongues.
1667-The Royal Society of London conducts a sheep-to-human blood transfusion experiment. Remarkably, the human subject survives.
1669-Niels Stensen publishes Forerunner, showing diagrammatic sections of the Tuscany area geology. As well as attempting to reconstruct the earth's history, Stensen makes the important point that sediments are deposited in horizontal layers.
1670-Agostino Scilla publishes Vain Speculation Undeceived by Sense arguing for the organic origin of fossils.
1672-1673-A German society of scholars reports that dragon bones have been found in the caves of the Carpathian mountains and in Transylvania. (The bones probably really belong to a bear.)
1673-Leeuwenhoek begins corresponding with the Royal Society of London describing his discoveries under the microscope.
1677-Naturalist Robert Plot describes what is actually a dinosaur bone. Although he accurately identifies it as the distal end of a femur, he attributes it to a giant human.
1678-Athanasius Kircher publishes Mundus Subterraneus.
1679-Edward Lhwyd publishes a description of a "flatfish" in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. (The flatfish is really a trilobite, an ancient marine arthropod.)
1683-Oxford opens the Ashmolean Museum, the world's first public museum.
1689: The English Bill of Rights - This bill was a precursor to the American Bill of Rights, and set out strict limits on the Royal Family's legal prerogatives such as a prohibition against arbitrary suspension of Parliament's laws. More importantly, it limited the right to raise money through taxation to Parliament.
1690 - the first -- and only edition -- of Publick
Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestic was published by
Benjamin Harris, in Boston, Mass. Authorities considered
this first newspaper published in America to be
offensive and ordered it suppressed.
1692: The Salem Witch Trials - In 1692, in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, USA, a group of young women accused several other women of
practicing witchcraft or worship of the Devil. The accusations turned into a judicial frenzy and over 300 people were
accused of witchcraft, of which 20 were executed including a priest. The extremity of the penalty turned many against the prosecution of
witchcraft. There would be no more witchcraft trials in New England.
1693-Naturalist John Ray publishes Three Physicotheological Discourses about the Creation, the Deluge and the Conflagration. In it, he examines conflicting theories about the nature of fossils.
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