timelinescience - 1401 to 1500

1401 to 1500


Setting the scene
	Much of what happens in the 15th century has its roots in the effects of the Black Death. The massive fall in population means that communities have to organise themselves in different ways in order to flourish again. Mechanical devices and more trade can make up in part for fewer people, and the atmosphere is ripe for new ideas and new ways of thinking. During the 15th century the great European Renaissance begins. Artists such as Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci produce stunning works of art such as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It is art rather than science that thrives and blossoms during the early years of the Renaissance. Modern science has a few centuries yet to wait before it emerges from the mists of alchemy and astrology to become a truly rigorous experimental discipline.

The science
	The Chinese calculate the length of the solar year as about 365.25 days. Influenza ('flu) is recorded as a disease for the first time in Paris in 1414. Between 1440 and 1449 Nicholas of Cusa (a German whose real name was Nicholas Krebs) writes a book suggesting amongst other things that the earth revolves around the Sun. He also makes glasses for near-sighted people. Leonardo da Vinci designs a working parachute. An 'anatomical theatre' is opened in Padua, Italy where people can go to see the dissection of corpses demonstrated. This isparticularly useful for doctors and trainee doctors who for the first time can see what the insides of people look like and try to relate what they see to the symptoms living patients might describe. Christopher Columbus discovers that Native Americans use tobacco as a medicine. Leonardo da Vinci is the first person to observe capillary action when he notices that liquids in tubes of small diameter tend to move up the walls of the tubes. In 1500 the Chinese scientist Wan Hu ties 47 gunpowder rockets to a chair in an effort to make a flying machine, but it explodes and kills him!