Science & Technology

The illustrious champion of science was created on July 15th, 1662.

Nicholas Mee recalls Jeremiah Horrocks, the first astronomer to observe Venus cross in front of the Sun, whose discoveries paved the way for the achievements of Isaac Newton.

The links between Dante's The Divine Comedy and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN are deeper than one might imagine.

Two hundred years ago Britain was gripped by a wave of violent machine breaking, as skilled textile workers, invoking the mythical Ned Ludd, attacked factories and factory owners in an attempt to defend their livelihoods. Richard Jones looks at how the phenomenon affected the industrial heartlands of Yorkshire.

The great military institution took flight on April 13th, 1912.

Since the 19th century, attitudes to drugs have been in constant flux, argues Victoria Harris, owing as much to fashion as to science.

The invention of the telephone, the early years of the steamboat and other great Scottish firsts.

The Flemish cartographer was born on March 5th, 1512.

Alex Keller tells the story of how an unlikely friendship between a Dutch doctor and a young Italian nobleman led to the establishment of the first scientific society, which lent crucial support to the radical ideas of Galileo Galilei.

Constructing the Victoria Embankment on the north bank of the River Thames in London: an image analysed by Roger Hudson.