The year 1741 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin publishes his first paper on the moons of Jupiter, in the Acta of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala.

Botany

Johann Jacob Dillenius publishes Historia Muscorum, a significant work on cryptogams.

Exploration

May - Vitus Bering sets out from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to map the coasts of Siberia and Alaska.

Medicine

Nicolas Andry publishes Orthopédie, giving a name to the discipline of orthopedics.

Zoology

July 20 - Georg Wilhelm Steller, physician on Bering’s Second Kamchatka Expedition, becomes the first European naturalist to set foot on Alaskan soil (Kayak Island), identifying many species for the first time, including Steller's Jay. On the return voyage he discovers Steller's Sea Cow (extinct by 1768).[1]

Awards

Copley Medal: John Theophilus Desaguliers

Births

January 20 - Carl Linnaeus the Younger, Swedish naturalist (d. 1783)
March 17 - William Withering, English botanist, geologist, chemist and physician who discovered digitalis (d. 1799)
September 22 - Peter Simon Pallas, German zoologist (d. 1811)
probable date - Bryan Higgins, Irish-born chemist (d. 1818)

Deaths

May 16 - Jacob Christoph Le Blon, German inventor of four-colour printing (born 1667)
December 19 - Vitus Bering, Danish-born explorer (born 1681) (on Bering Island)

References

^ "Steller's SeaCow". Sirenian International. 2005. Retrieved 2011-12-02.