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The year 1709 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Meteorology

  • January – Great Frost in Western Europe.

Physics

  • Francis Hauksbee publishes Physico-Mechanical Experiments on Various Subjects, summarizing the results of his many experiments with electricity and other topics.

Technology

  • January 10 – Industrial Revolution: Abraham Darby I successfully produces cast iron using coke fuel at his Coalbrookdale blast furnace in Shropshire, England.
  • February 5 – Dramatist John Dennis devises the thundersheet as a new method of producing theatrical thunder for his tragedy Appius and Virginia at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London.
  • March 28 – Johann Friedrich Böttger reports the first production of hard-paste porcelain in Europe, at Dresden.
  • July 13 – Johann Maria Farina founds Farina gegenüber, the first Eau de Cologne and perfume factory in Cologne, Germany.
  • August 8 – Hot air balloon of Bartholome de Gusmão flies in Portugal.
  • A collapsible umbrella is introduced in Paris.

Awards

  • April 9 – Sir Godfrey Copley, 2nd Baronet dies and in his will provides funding to the Royal Society for the annual Copley Medal honoring achievement in science (first awarded in 1731).

Births

  • February 24 – Jacques de Vaucanson, French engineer and inventor (died 1782)
  • March 3 – Andreas Sigismund Marggraf, German chemist (died 1782)
  • March 10 – Georg Steller, German naturalist (died 1746)
  • April 17 – Giovanni Domenico Maraldi, French-Italian astronomer (died 1788)
  • July 11 – Johan Gottschalk Wallerius, Swedish chemist and mineralogist (died 1785)
  • August 8 – Johann Georg Gmelin, German botanist (died 1755)
  • November 23 – Julien Offray de La Mettrie, French physician and philosopher (died 1751)

Deaths

  • early – Eleanor Glanville, English entomologist (born c. 1654)
  • June 29 – Antoine Thomas, Belgian Jesuit astronomer in China (born 1644)
  • June 30 – Edward Lhuyd, Welsh naturalist (born 1660)
  • October 17 – François Mauriceau, French obstetrician (born 1637)

References