Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born on 21 June 1646 in Leipzig. A German philosopher and mathematician, Leibniz worked as a diplomat, librarian and adviser at the court of Hanover. He developed the differential and integral calculus independently of Isaac Newton, and the notation he created is still used today, which led to a long dispute over priority. He also designed a mechanical calculator and promoted the binary number system, and he made contributions to logic, physics, law and geology. In philosophy he argued for monads as the basic elements of reality and held that this is the best of all possible worlds, an idea later mocked by Voltaire in Candide.
Before and after
- 1644Birth of Matsuo Bashō
- June 1644The Manchus take Beijing and found Qing rule
- from September 1644 to July 1645Sieges of Taunton
- from 23 June 1645 to 1 January 1669Cretan War of 1645-1669
- 21 June 1646Birth of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- from 1648 to 1657Khmelnytsky Uprising
- from 1648 to 1653Fronde
- 6 April 1648Construction of Red Fort
- from 29 April 1648 to 16 May 1648Battle of Zhovti Vody
More in Science & technology
- 1543De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
- 1637Descartes publishes La Geometrie: algebra meets geometry
- October 1684Leibniz publishes the first paper on calculus
- 15 April 1707Birth of Leonhard Euler
- 20 March 1727Death of Isaac Newton
- 28 August 1749Birth of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The era
This moment belongs to the Early modern world (1500 CE to 1760 CE), voyages, printing and new ideas. You can also browse everything in the 17th century.