1887 in science

The year 1887 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.

Events

* March 3 - Helen Keller meets her miracle worker, Anne Sullivan, who must teach language to the deaf and blind Keller, unable to speak.
* March 4 - Gottlieb Daimler unveils his first automobile.
* March 8 - Everett Horton of Connecticut patented a fishing rod of telescoping steel tubes.
* March 13 - Chester Greenwood patents earmuffs.
* June 8 - Herman Hollerith receives a patent for his punch card calculator.
* July 26 - In linguistics, L. L. Zamenhof publishes "Dr. Esperanto's International Language".
* August - Anna Connelly patents the fire escape.
* August - In medicine, the U.S. National Institutes of Health is founded at the Marine Hospital, Staten Island, NY, as the Laboratory of Hygiene.
* In Hawaii, the Mauna Loa volcano eruptions subsided, having begun in 1843. During the 1887 eruption, about 2 1/2 million tons (2.3 million metric tons) of lava per hour poured out, covering an area of 29 km².
* Heinrich Hertz discovers electromagnetism.
* The Michelson-Morley experiment is performed, indicating that the speed of light is independent of motion.
* Adolf Eugen Fick invents the contact lens, made of a type of brown glass.
* The comptometer is patented by Dorr Eugene Felt.
* In medicine, the British nurses association is organized.
* Von Oppolzer published a catalog of predicted eclipses.
* The Yellow River floods in China: 900,000 dead.
* In technology, Thomas Stevens (cyclist) becomes the first man to bicycle around the world.

Awards

* Copley Medal: Joseph Dalton Hooker
* Wollaston Medal for Geology: John Whitaker Hulke

Births

* June 22 - Julian Huxley (d. 1975), British biologist and author.
* August 18 - Erwin Schrödinger (d. 1961), physicist.

Deaths

* January 22 - Joseph Whitworth (b. 1803), English mechanical engineer.
* August 15 - Julius von Haast (b. 1824), German geologist.
* August 19 - Spencer Fullerton Baird (b. 1823), ornithologist and ichthyologist.
* August 19 - Alvan Clark (b. 1804), telescope manufacturer.
* October 17 - Gustav Kirchhoff (b. 1824), physicist.