Portal:History of science/Selected anniversaries/February 17

February 17:

• 1680 - Death of Jan Swammerdam, Dutch biologist (b. 1637)

• 1723 - Birth of Tobias Mayer, German astronomer (d. 1762)

• 1753 - February 17 is followed by March 1 as Sweden moves from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar

• 1792 - Birth of Karl Ernst von Baer, German biologist (d. 1876)

• 1874 - Death of Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, Belgian mathematician (b. 1796)

• 1888 - Birth of Otto Stern, German physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate (d. 1969)