Portal:History of science/Selected anniversaries/March 2

March 2:

• 1729 - Death of Francesco Bianchini, Italian philosopher and scientist (b. 1662)

• 1779 - Birth of Joel Roberts Poinsett, American statesman and botanist (d. 1851)

• 1791 - Long-distance communication speeds up with the unveiling of a semaphore machine in Paris

• 1808 - The inaugural meeting of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, was held in Edinburgh

• 1840 - Death of Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers, German astronomer (b. 1758)

• 1862 - Birth of Boris Borisovich Galitzine, Russian physicist (d. 1916)

• 1962 - Death of Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin, Belgian mathematician (b. 1866)

• 1998 - Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice