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DNA

molecule that encodes the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and many viruses

9 dated entries naming DNA, drawn from 8 separate years between 430 BCE and 2004 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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5th century BC

  • 430 BCEAn outbreak of a plague hits Athens and the disease ravages the densely packed city (modern DNA analyses of material from ancient cemeteries suggest the mortal disease may have been typhus). The plague wipes out over 30,000 citizens, sailors, and soldiers as well as Pericles' two sons. Roughly one-quarter of the Athenian population dies. The fear of plague is so widespread that the Spartan invasion of Attica is abandoned, their troops being unwilling to risk contact with the diseased enemy.source

19th century

  • 1869Friedrich Miescher purifies nuclein, which was then identified as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).source

20th century

  • 1928January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly demonstrating that DNA is the genetic material.source
  • 1953April 25 – Francis Crick and James Watson publish "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid", their description of the double helix structure of DNA.source
  • 1953February 28 – James Watson and Francis Crick of Britain's University of Cambridge announce their discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule.source
  • 1972October 1 – The first publication reporting the production of a recombinant DNA molecule, by Paul Berg and colleagues, marks the birth of modern molecular biology methodology.source
  • 1985DNA is first used in a criminal case.source
  • 1997July 10 – In London, scientists report their DNA analysis findings from a Neanderthal skeleton, which support the out of Africa theory of human evolution, placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.source

21st century

  • 2004July 28 – Francis Crick, 88, British biologist, one of the discoverers of the "double-helix" shape of DNA, cancer.source

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