Year Event

1600 William Gilbert coins the term electricity from the Greek word elecktra.

1600 The Microsoft Windows epoch time is set to start on January 1, 1601.

1605 Francis Bacon devices the Baconian Cipher, a cipher that used A's and B's to encode messages.

1613 The word "computer" was first used in 1613 and was originally used to describe a person who performed calculations or computations. The definition of a computer remained the same until the end of the 19th century when it began referring to a calculating machine.

1613 Claude Perrault was born on September 25, 1613.

1614 John Napier illustrates and puts forward the idea of logarithms.

1617 John Napier introduced a system called "Napier's Bones," made from horn, bone or ivory the device allowed the capability of multiplying by adding numbers and dividing by subtracting.

1617 Tito Burattini was born on March 8, 1617.

1617 John Napier passed away on April 4, 1617 (Age: 66-67).

1621 The circular slide rule is invented by William Oughtred.

1623 Blaise Pascal was born on June 19, 1623.

1623 The first known workable mechanical calculating machine is invented by Germanys Wilhelm Schickard. The machine is based on the idea of Napier's Bones, mentioned earlier.

1625 Samuel Morland was born in 1625.

1626 Francis Bacon passed away on April 9, 1626 (Age: 65).

1626 Edmund Gunter passed away on December 10, 1626 (Age: 45).

1630 Henry Briggs passed away on January 26, 1630 (Age: 68).

1630 Johannes Kepler passed away on November 15, 1630 (Age: 58).

1632 William Oughtred of Cambridge combines two Gunter rules to make a device that resembles today's slide rule.

1635 Robert Hooke was born on July 28, 1635.

1635 Wilhelm Schickard passed away on October 24, 1635 (Age: 43).

1642 Frances Blaise Pascal invents a machine, called the Pascaline, that adds, subtracts, and carry between digits.

1642 Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642.

1646 Gottfried Leibniz was born on July 1, 1646.

1650 René Descartes passed away on February 11, 1650 (Age: 53).

1662 Blaise Pascal passed away on August 19, 1662 (Age: 39).

1671 Gottfried Leibniz introduces the Step Reckoner, a device that multiplies, divides, and evaluates square roots.

1679 Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates binary arithmetic, a discovery that shows every number can be represented by 0 and 1 only.

1681 Tito Livio Burattini passed away on November 17, 1681 (Age: 64).

1688 Claude Perrault passed away in 1688 (Age: 75).