Science & Discovery in the 16th century

74 sourced entries, 1502 CE to 1598 CE, oldest first. Also see Science & Discovery across every century or everything else in the 16th century.

• 1502February 13 – The new Viceroy of the New World, Nicolás de Ovando, departs Spain with a fleet of 30 ships and orders to replace Viceroy Francisco de Bobadilla at Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola, and arrives in April.source
• 1502October 1 – An annular solar eclipse occurs.source
• 1502November 19 – The "Cantino planisphere", a precise copy for an Italian spy of Portugal's secret Padrão Real map of the New World, is acquired by Alberto Cantino, agent for Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, at a cost of 12 golden ducats.source
• 1503July 23 – Orbital calculations suggest that on this day Pluto moves outside Neptune's orbit, remaining there for 233 years.source
• 1504February 29 – Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse this night, to convince the indigenous Jamaican people to provide him with supplies (in Europe, the eclipse is in the early morning of March 1).source
• 1505The Pomander Watch of 1505, the earliest known pocket watch, is made by Peter Henlein in Germany at Nuremberg. After an absence of 480 years, the watch will be rediscovered at a flea market in London; an inscription on the watch, "MDVPHN", will be interpreted in 2014 as meaning a rendition of the year (MDV, 1505 in Roman numerals); the inventor (PH for Peter Henlein) and the place of manufacture (N for Nuremberg).source
• 1506Duarte Barbosa returns to Lisbon.source
• 1508March 22 – Working from the house of Piero di Braccio Martelli at Florence, Leonardo da Vinci begins writing his "collection without order" of his scientific discoveries.source
• 1508November 29 – Astronomer Mikołaj Kopernik of Poland is granted benefits by Pope Julius II in order to perform his work.source
• 1509Erasmus writes his most famous work, In Praise of Folly.source
• 1509Georg Tannstetter is appointed by Maximilian I as the Professor of Astronomy at the University of Vienna.source
• 1511October 12 – James IV of Scotland's great ship, the Michael, is launched at Newhaven, Edinburgh; she is the largest ship afloat at this date.source
• 1512Nicolaus Copernicus begins to write Commentariolus, an abstract of what will eventually become De revolutionibus orbium coelestium; he sends it to other scientists interested in the matter by 1514.source
• 1513Paracelsus begins studying at Ferrara University.source
• 1514June 13 – Henry Grace à Dieu, at over 1,000 tons the largest warship in the world at this time, built at the new Woolwich Dockyard in England, is dedicated.source
• 1514Nicolaus Copernicus's Commentariolus is written by this date.source
• 1514Paolo Ricci (Camillo Renato) moves to Augsburg.source
• 1515May 20 – "Ulysses", the first known rhinoceros in Europe, arrives at Lisbon in Portugal after being brought by ship from India.source
• 1516The fall of the Nantan meteorite is possibly observed near the city of Nantan, Nandan County, Guangxi (China).source
• 1518May 26 – A transit of Venus occurs, but a transit will not be observed or recorded until 120 years later, on December 4, 1639.source
• 1518Henricus Grammateus publishes Ayn neu Kunstlich Buech in Vienna, containing the earliest printed use of plus and minus signs for arithmetic.source
• 1518Johann Froben publishes Erasmus's work Colloquies, which was unauthorized, and it took until 1519 that an authorized version would be published.source
• 1519March 4 – Hernán Cortés and his conquistadores land in Mexico.source
• 1521Jacopo Berengario da Carpi publishes Commentaria cum amplissimus additionibus super anatomiam Mundini in Bologna, including observation of the vermiform appendix.source
• 1526February 15 – Spanish author Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, commonly called "Oviedo", publishes the chronicle La Natural Hystoria De Las Indias (The Natural History of the Indies)source
• 1526May 23 – A transit of Venus occurs, the last before optical filters allow astronomers to observe them.source
• 1528Baldassare Castiglione publishes The Book of the Courtier.source
• 1529German polymath Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa publishes Declamatio de nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus ("Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex"), a book pronouncing the theological and moral superiority of women.source
• 1531August 26 – Comet Halley achieves its perihelion.source
• 1531Andrea Alciato publishes Emblemata.source
• 1533November 15 – Francisco Pizarro arrives in Cusco, Peru.source
• 1540Georg Joachim Rheticus publishes De libris revolutionum Copernici narratio prima in Danzig, an abstract of Copernicus' as yet unpublished De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.source
• 1543January 4 – Andrea Centurione Pietrasanta begins a two-year term as the new Doge of the Republic of Genoa, replacing Leonardo Cattaneo della Volta.source
• 1543March 21 – In Nuremberg, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) is printed during the illness of Nicholas Copernicus, offering mathematical arguments for the existence of the heliocentric universe, denying the geocentric model. According to legend, Copernicus, who had a stroke in December, is presented a copy of the book on his deathbed shortly before dying on May 24 in Frombork at the age of 70.source
• 1543June – Andreas Vesalius publishes De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body), revolutionising the science of human anatomy.source
• 1543Martin Luther publishes On the Jews and Their Lies.source
• 1543Mikael Agricola publishes Abckiria.source
• 1544January 24 – During a solar eclipse visible over the Netherlands, Dutch mathematician and designer Gemma Frisius makes the first recorded use of a camera obscura and uses it to observe the event without directly looking at the Sun. Frisius writes about the event the next year and illustrates it in his book De Radio Astronomica et Geometrica (Regarding rays of light in astronomy and geometry).source
• 1544The earliest mention of the tomato in European literature appeared in Pietro Andrea Mattioli's herbal.source
• 1545The Italian mathematician Gerolamo Cardano published a book on algebra, Ars Magna, that contained the first published algebraic solutions to cubic and quartic equations.source
• 1550Approximate date – The discovery of silver at Guanajuato in Mexico stimulates silver rushes.source
• 1550Nostradamus' first almanac is written.source
• 1552In Italy, Bartolomeo Eustachi completes his Tabulae anatomicae, presenting his discoveries on the structure of the inner ear and heart, although, for fear of the Inquisition, it will not be published until 1714.source
• 1555Richard Eden publishes The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India, a translation into English of parts of Pietro Martire d'Anghiera's De orbe novo decades, the Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés work Natural hystoria de las Indias and others, urging his countrymen to follow the lead of Spain in exploring the New World; the work includes the first recorded use in English of the country name 'China'.source
• 1557Welsh-born mathematician Robert Recorde publishes The Whetstone of Witte in London, containing the first recorded use of the equals sign, and the first use in English of plus and minus signs.source
• 1559John Calvin publishes the final edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion.source
• 1560August 21 – A total eclipse of the sun is observable in Europe, which inspires Tycho Brahe's interest in astronomy.source
• 1560The first scientific society, the Academia Secretorum Naturae, is founded in Naples by Giambattista della Porta.source
• 1562Fausto Sozzini publishes Brevis explicatio in primum Johannis caput, originating Socinianism.source
• 1564The first recorded report is made of a "rat king".source
• 1565The pencil is first documented by Conrad Gesner; it is becoming common in England.source
• 1566March – The Hanseatic city of Lübeck launches the galleon Adler von Lübeck, probably the largest ship in the world at this time.source
• 1568Polybius' Histories are first translated into English, by Christopher Watson.source
• 1569The Mercator projection is first used in Gerardus Mercator's world map, Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendata.source
• 1570May 20 – Abraham Ortelius publishes the first modern atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, in Antwerp.source
• 1570Andrea Palladio publishes I quattro libri dell'architettura in Venice.source
• 1572November 9 – Supernova SN 1572 is first observed in the constellation Cassiopeia, by Cornelius Gemma.source
• 1572November 11 – Tycho Brahe also notices Supernova SN 1572. He will use it to challenge the prevailing view that stars do not change. The supernova remnant remains visible through 1574.source
• 1572Georg Braun begins publication of his urban atlas, Civitates orbis terrarum, in Cologne.source
• 1572Imaginary numbers are defined by Rafael Bombelli.source
• 1572Girolamo Mercuriale from Forlì (Italy) writes the work De morbis cutaneis ("On the diseases of the skin"), the first scientific tract on dermatology.source
• 1575Captains of vessels flying the Spanish flag are legally required to maintain a logbook.source
• 1577November 6 – The first recorded observation from Earth of the Great Comet of 1577 takes place by Aztec astronomers in Mexico, followed by reports from Italy on November 7 and Japan on November 8. Astronomer Tycho Brahe will track the comet from November 13 until January 26 before it departs the Solar System.source
• 1579December 24 – German astronomer Michael Maestlin makes the first cataloging of the Pleiades cluster, recording 11 separate stars visible to the naked eye, with a detailed illustration and measurements.source
• 1581July 26 – A meteorite strikes the Earth in Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire.source
• 1584This year, according to Italian heretic Jacopo Brocardo, is regarded as an apocalyptic inauguration of a major new cycle.source
• 1587The chapbook Historia von D. Johann Fausten, printed by Johann Spies in Frankfurt, is the first published version of the Faust story.source
• 1588October 7 – The first biography of Nicolaus Copernicus (d.1543) is completed by Bernardino Baldi.source
• 1590October 13 – German astronomer Michael Maestlin becomes the first person to record an observation of the occultation of the planet Mars by the planet Venus.source
• 1592March 14 – Ultimate Pi Day: the largest correspondence between calendar dates and significant digits of pi since the introduction of the Julian calendar according to the American method of writing the number of the month prior to the day.source
• 1593March 14 – The Pi Day, giving the most digits of pi when written in mm/dd/yyyy format, (i.e. 3.141593, 3/14/1593) occurs, as realized later. During 1593 Flemish mathematician Adriaan van Roomen is working on the most accurate calculation of pi up to that time and arrives at 16 decimal places of pi using the polygon approximation method), and publishes it in his treatise Ideae mathematicae pars prima (Antverpiae, 1593).source
• 1596August – David Fabricius discovers the variable nature of the star Mira.source
• 1597Andreas Libavius publishes Alchemia, a pioneering chemistry textbook.source
• 1598May – Tycho Brahe's star catalogue Astronomiæ instauratæ mechanica, listing the positions of 1,004 stars, is published.source