July 15 – In the Egyptian port city of Rosetta (Rashid), French Captain Pierre Bouchard finds the Rosetta Stone, which will become the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.
George Shaw of the British Museum publishes the first scientific description of the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus Shaw) in The Naturalists' Miscellany.[3][4]
Caleb Parry publishes An Inquiry Into the Symptoms and Causes of the Syncope Anginosa Commonly Called Angina Pectoris, illustrated by Dissections, describing the mechanisms for Angina.[7]
Matthew Baillie begins publication in London of A Series of Engravings, Accompanied with Explanations, which are Intended to Illustrate the Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body, the first comprehensive atlas of pathology as a separate subject.
Metrologyedit
An all-platinumkilogrammeprototype is fabricated with the objective of equalling as closely as feasible the mass of one cubic decimetre of water at 4 °C. The prototype is presented to the Archives of the French Republic in June and on December 10 is formally ratified as the Kilogramme des Archives and the kilogramme defined as being equal to its mass. This standard holds for the next ninety years.
Mineralogyedit
Twelve-year-old Conrad John Reed finds what he described as a "heavy yellow rock" along Little Meadow Creek in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, and makes it a doorstop in his home. Conrad's father, John Reed, learns that the rock is actually gold in 1802, initiating the first gold rush in the United States.
^Contributions to Physical and Medical Knowledge, principally from the West of England p. 4.
^"biology, n". Oxford English Dictionary online version. Oxford University Press. September 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-01. (subscription or participating institution membership required)
^Shaw, George; Nodder, Frederick Polydore (1799). "The Duck-Billed Platypus, Platypus anatinus". The Naturalist's Miscellany. 10 (CXVIII): 385–386. doi:10.5962/p.304567.
^"Historical Background and Naming". Australian Platypus Conservancy. Retrieved 2011-04-16.
^"The 18th Century Women Scientists of Bologna". ScienceWeek. 2004. Archived from the original on 2012-03-02. Retrieved 2011-04-26.
^Woodbury, Robert S. (1960). "The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts". Technology and Culture. 1.
^"Copley Medal | British scientific award". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
^Haines, Catharine M. C. (2001). International Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary to 1950. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-57607-090-1.
^Haines, Catharine M. C. (2001). International Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary to 1950. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-57607-090-1.