A paper nautilus, woodcut in L'histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins, by Pierre Belon, 1551 (Linda Hall Library)

A paper nautilus, woodcut in L'histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins, by Pierre Belon, 1551 (Linda Hall Library)

Pierre Belon

MARCH 28, 2024

When I wrote a post on Conrad Gessner two days ago, I was surprised when I tried to add a link to Gesner's worthy contemporary, Pierre Belon, and ...

George F.L. Marshall

George Frederick Leycester Marshall, a career British officer in the Royal Army in India, was born Mar. 27, 1843, in Shropshire.  His brother ...

MARCH 27, 2024

Conrad Gessner

Conrad Gesner, a Swiss naturalist, was born Mar. 26, 1516.  Gesner was the most distinguished naturalist of the late Renaissance, a contemporary ...

MARCH 26, 2024

Isaac Stevens

In 1853, the U.S. Congress authorized the Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, to survey the American West, in order to determine the best route for ...

MARCH 25, 2024

The Lumière Brothers

The Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, were a pair of pioneering French filmmakers and inventors. Auguste was born Oct. 19, 1862, and Louis ...

MARCH 22, 2024

Herbert Ponting

Herbert George Ponting, a British photographer and explorer, was born Mar. 21, 1870.  Every polar expedition had a photographer, but not many are ...

MARCH 21, 2024

Louis de Broglie

Louis Victor, 7th Duc de Broglie, a French aristocrat and physicist, died Mar. 19, 1987, at the age of 94.  De Broglie started out intending to ...

MARCH 20, 2024

Andrew J. Russell

Andrew Jackson Russell, an American artist and photographer, was born Mar. 20, 1829, in Walpole, New Hampshire, and grew up in Nunda, New York ...

MARCH 19, 2024

George Elliot

George Elliot, an English manufacturer, was born Mar. 18, 1814.  Elliot lived out a classic rags-to-riches story.  His father worked in a coal ...

MARCH 18, 2024

William Hayward Pickering

William Hayward Pickering, a New Zealand-born American rocket engineer and administrator, died Mar. 15, 2004, at the age of 93.  After growing up ...

MARCH 15, 2024

Theo Jansen

Theo Jansen, a Dutch artist, sculptor, and engineer, was born Mar. 14, 1948, in Scheveningen, in the Netherlands.  Since 1990, Jansen has been ...

MARCH 14, 2024

Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley, an English (and later American) religious dissenter and natural philosopher, was born Mar. 13, 1733, in West Yorkshire.  Born...

MARCH 13, 2024

Luca Gaurico

Luca Gaurico, an Italian astrologer, was born Mar. 12, 1475.  Astrology was a very competitive profession in Renaissance Italy, as princes and ...

MARCH 12, 2024