Sir Isaac Newton

• December 25, 1642: ·Birth of Isaac Newton in Woolsthorpe, England
• January 1646: ·Hannah Newton remarries and moves away, leaving her son to be raised by an uncle.
• January 30, 1649: ·Charles I beheaded by Cromwell and the Puritans.
• 1653: ·Death of Hannah’s second husband; she returns to live with Isaac, bringing three children with her from her second marriage.
• 1654: ·Newton enrolls in the Grantham Grammar School
• September 3, 1658: ·Death of Cromwell.
• 1660: ·Charles II crowned King of England, Restoration begins
• 1661: ·Newton enrolls in Trinity College, Cambridge.
• July 1662: ·Founding of the Royal Society
• 1665: ·Newton receives his bachelor of arts from Trinity College
• 1666: ·Fire in London. Outbreak of plague drives Newton to retire to his mother’s home in Woolsthorpe. Newton conducts prism experiments, discovers spectrum of light; works out his system of “fluxions,” precursor of modern calculus; begins to consider the idea of gravity.
• 1669: ·Newton appointed Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Trinity, a position he will hold for the next thirty-four years.
• January 11, 1672: ·Newton elected to the Royal Society
• February 1672: ·Newton’s paper on optics and his prism experiments sent to the Society. Rivalry with Hooke begins.
• 1670s: ·Newton works on the mathematics of gravitation in his home in Cambridge.
• 1674: ·Hooke writes book in which he suggests existence of “attractive powers,” akin to gravity.
• 1679: ·Death of Hannah Newton
• January 1684: ·Hooke discusses principle of inverse squares with Christopher Wren and Halley
• August 1684: ·Halley goes to visit Newton in Cambridge, where they discuss the principle inverse squares and its relationship with planetary orbits.
• November 1684: ·Newton completes his calculations on gravity and shares them with Halley, who urges him to publish.
• February 1685: ·Newton sends a brief treatise, Propositiones de Motu, to the Royal Society, outlining his findings.
• April 1686: ·Newton presents the first book of the Principia to the Royal Society.
• September 1687: ·Publication of the complete Principia
• 1688-89: ·Glorious Revolution in England. James II flees to France, William and Mary take the throne.
• 1689: ·Newton elected as Cambridge’s representative to Parliament.
• 1693: ·Newton’s “Black Year.” He is plagued by depression and insomnia, and apparently suffers a nervous breakdown in September.
• 1695: ·Newton appointed warden of the Mint, to oversee the implementation of a new currency. He leaves Cambridge and moves to London.
• 1699: ·Newton named master of the Mint.
• 1703: ·Death of Hooke; Newton elected President of the Royal Society.
• 1704: ·Publication of Opticks; beginning of feud with Leibniz.
• 1705: ·Newton knighted by Queen Anne.
• 1712: ·Royal Society commission, under Newton’s direction, investigates the competing claims of Leibniz and Newton to having developed calculus, and decides in favor of Newton.
• 1713: ·Second edition of the Principia published.
• March 20, 1727: ·Death of Sir Isaac Newton, in London.