1874 in science

The year 1874 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

December 9 – a transit of Venus across the Sun is observed in Muddapur, India, by an astronomical expedition led by Pietro Tacchini

Per Teodor Cleve discovers that didymium is in fact two elements, now known as neodymium and praseodymium
C. R. Alder Wright synthesizes heroin
Othmar Zeidler synthesises DDT
Carl Schorlemmer publishes
Jacobus van 't Hoff and Achille Le Bel independently propose that organic molecular models can be three-dimensional

February – the Challenger expedition provides geological evidence for the existence of the continent of Antarctica

John William Draper publishes History of the Conflict between Religion and Science

Georg Cantor's paper, "Ueber eine Eigenschaft des Inbegriffes aller reellen algebraischen Zahlen" ("On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers"), published in Crelle's Journal, considered as the origin of set theory
William Stanley Jevons publishes his comprehensive treatise on logic, The Principles of Science
Sofia Kovalevskaya is awarded a doctorate in mathematics at the University of Göttingen, the first woman in Europe to hold that degree. Her submission includes a paper on partial differential equations containing a presentation of the Cauchy-Kovalevski theorem

April 1 – Dr Frances Morgan marries Dr George Hoggan and they set up the first husband-and-wife general medical practice in the United Kingdom
Autumn – London School of Medicine for Women founded
A. T. Still introduces osteopathic medicine in the United States

Franz Brentano publishes Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte (Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint)

May 20 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a United States patent for blue denim jeans with copper rivets
July 1 – Sholes and Glidden typewriter, with cylindrical platen and QWERTY keyboard, first marketed, in the United States
July 4 – official opening of Eads Bridge (combined road and rail steel arch) over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri, designed by James B. Eads. It is the longest arch bridge in the world at this time, with an overall length of 6,442 feet (1,964 m); the first use of true steel as a primary structural material in a major bridge project; the first built using cantilever support methods exclusively; and the first major project to make use of pneumatic caissons
Invention of barbed wire by Joseph Glidden

January 22 – Leonard Eugene Dickson (died 1954), American mathematician
February 2 – Ernest Shackleton (died 1922), Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer
April 25 – Guglielmo Marconi (died 1937), Italian inventor
September 12 – Redcliffe N. Salaman (died 1955), English botanist
September 26 – Oakes Ames (died 1950), American botanist
October 13 – Kiyotsugu Hirayama (died 1943), Japanese astronomer
November 27 – Chaim Weizmann (died 1952), Russian-born chemist and first President of Israel
November 29 – António Egas Moniz (died 1955), Portuguese neurologist, winner of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
December 6 – Elizabeth Laird (died 1969), Canadian physicist
December 28 – Arthur Schüller (died 1957), Austrian-born neuroradiologist

January 16 – Max Schultze (born 1825), German physiologist
January 24 – Johann Philipp Reis (born 1834), German physicist and inventor
February 17 – Adolphe Quetelet (born 1796), Belgian mathematician and astronomer
February 19 – Carl Ernst Bock (born 1809), German physician and anatomist
March 3 – Forbes Winslow (born 1810), English psychiatrist
March 10 – Moritz von Jacobi (born 1801), German-born electrical engineer
March 14 – Johann Heinrich von Mädler (born 1794), German astronomer
March 28 – Peter Andreas Hansen (born 1795), Danish-born German astronomer
April 13 – James Bogardus (born 1800), American inventor
November 21 – Sir William Jardine, 7th Baronet (born 1800), Scottish-born naturalist