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1731, Nov 91753-17971806, Oct 9
a free African American almanac author, surveyor, naturalist and farmer. His knowledge of astronomy helped him author a commercially successful series of almanacs. He corresponded with Thomas Jefferson, drafter of the United States Declaration of Independence, on the topics of slavery and racial equality. Abolitionists and advocates of racial equality promoted and praised his works.
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03/11/1789-Benjamin Banneker and Pierre Charles L'Enfant begin to lay out Washington D.C. 
08/19/1791-Benjamin Banneker sends a letter and his first Almanac to Thomas Jefferson
 Contemporaries
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Benjamin Banneker1731, Nov 91753
 
17971806, Oct 9

Ignacije Szentmartony1718, Oct 281753
 
17561793, Apr 15
 a Croatian Jesuit priest, missionary, mathematician, astronomer and explorer. After graduating fr...
Theodor Verhaegen1701, Jun 31720
 
17591759, Jul 25
 Very little is known about his life. He was born and died in Mechelen, though apparently worked i...
Nicolas Louis de Lacaille1713, Dec 281730
 
17611762, Mar 21
 a French astronomer and priest. His desire to determine the distances of the planets trigonometri...
James Bradley1693, Mar1714
 
17621762, Jul 13
 an English astronomer and served as Astronomer Royal from 1742, succeeding Edmond Halley. He is b...
Nathaniel Bliss1700, Nov 281742
 
17621764, Sep 2
 an English astronomer of the 18th century, serving as Britain's fourth Astronomer Royal between 1...
Joseph-Nicolas Delisle1688, Apr 41712
 
17631768, Sep 11
 a French astronomer and cartographer. From 1719 to 1722 he was employed at the Royal observatory,...
Mikhail Lomonosov1711, Nov 81742
 
17641765, Apr 4
 a Russian polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, educati...
Charles Green17351760
 
 
17711771, Jan 29
 a British astronomer and member of the expedition to observe the transit of Venus aboard James Co...
James Ferguson [3]1710, Apr 251720
 
17731776, Nov 17
  a Scottish astronomer, instrument and globe maker. It is, as the inventor and improver of astron...
Stephen Hopkins1707, Mar 71730
 
17791785, Jul 13
 a governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, a Chief Justice of the Rhode...
Thomas Wright [2]1711, Sep 221730
 
17791786, Feb 25
 an English astronomer, mathematician, instrument maker, architect and garden designer. He was the...
Cesar-Francois Cassini de Thury1714, Jun 171735
 
17841784, Sep 4
 a French astronomer and cartographer. His chief works are: La méridienne de l’Observatoire ...
Charles Messier1730, Jun 261744
 
17851817, Apr 12
 a French astronomer most notable for publishing an astronomical catalogue consisting of nebulae a...
Rudjer Boscovich1711, May 181740
 
17861787, Feb 13
 a Ragusan physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat, poet, theologian, Jesuit p...
John Goodricke1764, Sep 171778
 
 
17861786, Apr 20
 an English amateur astronomer. He is best known for his observations of the variable star Algol (...
Jean Sylvain Bailly1736, Sep 151759
 
 
17871793, Nov 12
 a French astronomer, mathematician, freemason, and political leader of the early part of the Fren...
Maximilian Hell1720, May 151756
 
 
17891792, Apr 14
  a Hungarian astronomer and an ordained Jesuit priest from the Kingdom of Hungary. Hell became th...
Asada Goryu 1734, Mar 101767
 
17991799, Jun 25
 a Japanese astronomer who helped to introduce modern astronomical instruments and methods into Ja...
Jean-Dominique Cassini1748 Jun 301768
 
18101845, Oct 18
 a French astronomer, he succeeded his father as director of the observatory. He published in 177...
Eise Eisinga1744, Feb 211761
 
18111828, Aug 27
 a Frisian amateur astronomer who built the Eise Eisinga Planetarium in his house in Franeker, Fri...
Iwahashi Zenbei17561790
 
18111811
 a Japanese scientist and optician. Zenbei researched some imported optical instruments, then in 1...
Andrew Ellicott [2]1754, Jan 241772
 
18171820, Aug 28
 a U.S. surveyor who helped map many of the territories west of the Appalachians, surveyed the bou...
William Herschel1738, Nov 151774
 
18201822, Aug 25
 a German-born British astronomer, composer, and brother of Caroline Herschel. His interest in ast...
Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre1749, Sep 191788
 
18221822, Aug 19
 a French mathematician and astronomer. He was also director of the Paris Observatory, and author ...
Johann Elert Bode1747, Jan 191766
 
18251826, Nov 23
 a German astronomer known for his reformulation and popularization of the Titius–Bode law. Bode...
Pierre-Simon Laplace1749, Mar 231771
 
18271827, Mar 5
 an influential French scholar whose work was important to the development of mathematics, statist...
Heinrich Wilhelm Matthaus Olbers1758, Oct 111779
 
18271840, Mar 2
 a German physician and astronomer. Olbers discovered and named the asteroid Pallas. Five years l...
Franz Xaver von Zach1754, Jun 41780
 
18271832, Sep 2
 a Hungarian astronomer born in Pest, Hungary. Zach published Tables of the Sun (Gotha, 179...
Karl Ludwig Harding1765, Sep 291796
 
18341834, Aug 31
 a German astronomer notable for having discovered the asteroid 3 Juno. In addition to Juno, he di...
Alexis Bouvard1767, Jun 271793
 
18431843, Jun 7
 a French astronomer. He is particularly noted for his careful observations of the irregularities ...
Caroline Herschel1750 Mar 161772
 
18461848, Jan 9
 a German British astronomer and the sister of astronomer Sir William Herschel with whom she worke...
Giuseppe Asclepi17061760
 
 
1861776
 an Italian astronomer and physician. He was a Jesuit and director of the observatory at the Colle...
David Rittenhouse1732, Apr 81750
 
1871796, Jun 26
 a renowned American astronomer, inventor, clockmaker, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrum...
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