See also: 1681 in science, other events of 1682, 1683 in science and the list of years in science.

Table of contents

1 Astronomy 2 Botany 3 Exploration 4 Births 5 Deaths

Astronomy

• A comet is observed, which later becomes known as Comet Halley, after Edmund Halley successfully predicts its return in 1758

• John Ray publishes his Methodus plantarum nova, which sets out his system to divide flowering plants into monocotyledons and dicotyledons

• René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle canoes down the Mississippi River, naming the Mississippi basin Louisiana in honour of Louis XIV

• July 10 - Roger Cotes, English mathematician (died 1716)
• Giovanni Battista Morgagni, Italian anatomist (died 1771)