Telescope: Did you mean...?

Piracy, defined as the act of attacking and robbing a ship or port by sea, had a long history in the ancient Mediterranean stretching from the time of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (r. 1353-1336 BCE) and throughout the Middle Ages (c. 476-1500...

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) was the most important microscopist of the Scientific Revolution. The Dutchman made over 500 microscopes, many with a magnification far superior to contemporary models. His discoveries include bacteria...

Thales of Miletus (l. c. 585 BCE) is regarded as the first Western philosopher and mathematician. He was born and lived in Miletus, a Greek colony in Ionia (modern Turkey) referenced as the birthplace of Greek Philosophy because of his high...

Aristarchus of Samos (l. c. 310 - c. 230 BCE) was a Greek astronomer who first proposed a heliocentric model of the universe in which the sun, not the earth, was at the center. Although his theory was noted by other thinkers of his time...

Uranus (also spelt Ouranos) is the personification of heaven and the sky in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Caelus. Gaia (Earth) gave birth to Uranus and chose him to be her equal. She lay with him, resulting in the birth of the...

The siege of Khartoum from March 1884 to January 1885 was the most dramatic episode of the Mahdist War (1881-99) in Sudan when an army led by the inspirational Muslim leader, Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi, rebelled against colonial...

Women scientists during the Scientific Revolution (1500-1700) were few in number because male-dominated educational institutions, as well as scientific societies and academies, barred women entry, meaning that few had the education or opportunity...

The thermometer was invented in the mid-17th century during the Scientific Revolution when scientists began to search for an accurate instrument to measure a wide range of temperatures using a scale that could be compared with other readings...

Keeping good time proved an elusive objective for centuries, and it was only in the second half of the 17th century, during the Scientific Revolution (1500-1700), that clocks were made which lost seconds rather than minutes each day. The...

Ancient China had seen little Western contact before the 16th century CE, the language, culture and science all being allowed to develop independently of foreign influence. By the time European Jesuit missionaries arrived in the 16th century...