The year 1795 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

December 13 - A meteorite falls to earth at Wold Newton, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the first to be recognised in modern times.

Botany

National Botanic Gardens (Ireland) opened by the Royal Dublin Society.

Mathematics

The 18-year-old Carl Friedrich Gauss develops the basis for the method of least squares analysis.[1]

Metrology

April 7 - The gram is decreed in France to be equal to “the absolute weight of a volume of water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of the metre, at the temperature of melting ice.”[2]

Paleontology

Georges Cuvier identifies the fossilised bones of a huge animal found in the Netherlands in 1770 as belonging to an extinct reptile

Theory of the Earth by James Hutton

Technology

November 30 - Joseph Bramah is granted a British patent for hydraulic machinery, notably the hydraulic press.[3]

Zoology

Johann Matthäus Bechstein publishes his treatise on songbirds Naturgeschichte der Stubenvögel ("Natural History of Cage Birds") in Gotha.
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire publishes "Histoire des Makis, ou singes de Madagascar", introducing his theory of the unity of organic composition.

Awards

Copley Medal: Jesse Ramsden

Births

December 8 - Peter Andreas Hansen, Danish astronomer (d. 1874)

Deaths

March 21 - Giovanni Arduino, Italian geologist (b. 1714)
July 3 - Antonio de Ulloa, Spanish explorer (b. 1716)
June 9 - François Chopart, French surgeon (b. 1743)
June 24 - William Smellie, Scottish naturalist (b. 1740)
October 1 - Robert Bakewell, English agriculturalist and geneticist (b. 1725)

References

^ Not published until 1809.
^ "Decree on weights and measures". 1795. Archived from the original on 24 September 2008. Retrieved 02 October 2008. "Gramme, le poids absolu d'un volume d'eau pure égal au cube de la centième partie du mètre , et à la température de la glace fondante"
^ McNeill, Ian (1972). Hydraulic Power. London: Longman. ISBN 0-582-12797-1.