1642-1727 AD -
Isaac Newton synthesizes recent astronomical discoveries through universal gravitation in his famed, Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), 1687.
1649, 1652 AD -
Cyrano's reference to "fire-crackers" in his novels, Voyage dans la Lune (Voyage to the Moon) and Histoire des États etc Empires du Soleil (History of the States and Empires of the Sun). Both refer to the newest scientific theories.
1668 AD -
Rocket experiments near Berlin by the German colonel, Christoph von Geissler.
1672 AD -
Cassini, an Italian astronomer, predicts the distance between Earth and Sun to be 86,000,000 miles.
1686 AD -
Bernard de Fontenelle's popular astronomy book, Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes (Discourses on the Plurality of Worlds) published. Contained speculations about the habitability of the planets.
1690 AD -
Gabriel Daniel's Voiage du Monde de Descartes (Voyage to the World of Descartes) discusses the soul's separation from the body in order to go to the "Globe of the Moon".
1698 AD -
Christian Huygens, renowned scientist, writes Cosmotheoros, or Conjectures Concerning the Planetary Worlds, a non-fictional premise on life on other planets.
1703 AD -
David Russen's Iter Lunare: or Voyage to the Moon uses the idea of catapulting to the moon.
1705 AD -
Daniel Defoe's The Consolidator tells of an ancient race's mastery of Lunar flight and describes various spaceships and legends of lunar flights.
1752 AD -
Voltaire's Micromégas describes a race of people on the star Sirius.
1758 AD -
Emanuel Swedenborg writes Earths in our Solar System, which takes
Christian Huygens' non-fictional approach to discussing life on other planets.
1775 AD -
Louis Folie writes Le Philosophe Sans Prétention, about a Mercurian who observes Earthlings.
1781 AD -
March 13:
William Herschel makes his own
telescope and discovers Uranus. He also puts forth theories of a habitable sun and life on other planetary bodies. Hyder Ali of India uses rockets against the British (were composed of heavy metal tubes guided by bamboo and had a range of a mile).
1783 AD -
First
manned balloon flight made.
1792-1799 AD -
Further use of military rockets against the British in India.
1799-1825 AD -
Pierre Simon, Marquis de Laplace, produces a five-volume work to describe the Newtonian "system of the world," entitled Celestial Mechanics.
1800 -
British Admiral
Sir William Congreve began working with rockets for military purposes in England. He had originally adapted the idea from Indian rockets.
1801 AD -
Rocket experiments carried out by the scientist,
Congreve. Astronomers discover that the large gap between Mars and Jupiter contains a large asteroid belt. The largest, Ceres, was found to have a diameter of 480 miles.
1806 -
Claude Ruggiere launched small animals in rockets equipped with parachutes, in France.
1806 AD -
First major rocket bombardment done (on Boulogne, using Congreve rockets).
1807 AD -
William Congreve used his rockets in the Napoleonic Wars, as the British attacked Copenhagen and Denmark.
1812 AD -
British rocket fire on Blasdenburg. Results in the taking of Washington D.C. and the White House.
1813 AD -
British Rocket Corps formed. Begin by taking action in Leipzig.
1814 AD -
August 9: British rocket fire on Fort McHenry prompts Francis Scott Key to write the "rockets' red glare" line in his famous poem. During the War of Independence, the British used the Congreve rockets to attack Fort McHenry in Baltimore.
1817 -
In St. Petersburg, Russian Zasyadko rockets were fired.
1825 AD -
Dutch forces bomb the Celebes tribe in the East Indies
William Hale develops the stickless rocket.
1826 AD -
Congreve performs further rocket experiments using stage rockets (rockets mounted on rockets) as set out by Von Schmidlap.
1827 AD -
George Tucker, under the pseudonym Joseph Atterlay, represents a "new wave in science fiction," through describing a spaceship in A Voyage to the Moon with some Account of the Manners and Customs, Science and Philosophy of the People of Morosofia and other Lunarians.
1828 -
Russian Zasyadko rockets were put to use in the Russo Turkish War.
