1876 in science

• December 7 – First recorded observation of the Great White Spot on Saturn, made by American astronomer Asaph Hall, who uses it to calculate the planet's rotation period.

• Robert Koch demonstrates that Bacillus anthracis is the source of anthrax, the first bacterium conclusively shown to cause disease.{{cite journal|last=Koch|first=R.|year=1876|title=Die Ätiologie der Milzbrand-Krankheit, begründet auf die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Bacillus anthracis|journal=Cohns Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen|volume=2|issue=2|url=http://edoc.rki.de/documents/rk/508-5-26/PDF/5-26.pdf|pages=277–310|accessdate=2011-05-31}}
• Koller's sickle in avian gastrulation is first described by August Rauber.
• Francis Galton invents the silent dog whistle.{{cite book|last=Galton|first=Francis|year=1883|url=http://www.galton.org/books/human-faculty/index.html|title=Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development|pages=26–27}}
• Meiosis is discovered and described for the first time in sea urchin eggs by the German biologist Oscar Hertwig.

• Josiah Willard Gibbs publishes On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances, a compilation of his work on thermodynamics and physical chemistry which lays out the concept of free energy to explain the physical basis of chemical equilibria.{{cite web |last1=O'Connor |first1=J. J. |last2=Robertson |first2=E.F. |title=Josiah Willard Gibbs |work=MacTutor |publisher=School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland |year=1997 |url =http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Gibbs.html |accessdate=2007-03-24}}

• May 24 – End of the Challenger expedition.{{cite book|last=Rice|first=A. L.|title=Understanding the Oceans: Marine Science in the Wake of HMS Challenger|location=London|publisher=Routledge|year=1999|pages=27–48|chapter=The Challenger Expedition|isbn=978-1-85728-705-9|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F5agn3NSzEoC&pg=PA27}}

• Édouard Lucas demonstrates that 127 is a Mersenne prime, the largest that will be recorded for seventy-five years.{{cite web|title=The Largest Known Prime by Year: A Brief History|first=Chris|last=Caldwell|url=http://primes.utm.edu/notes/by_year.html|accessdate=2011-12-30}} He also shows that the Mersenne number 2⁶⁷ − 1, or M₆₇, must have factors.

• February 22 – Swedish woman Karolina Olsson lapses into a form of hibernation for 32 years.
• David Ferrier publishes The Functions of the Brain.
• William Macewen demonstrates clinical diagnosis of the site of brain tumors and performs the first successful intercranial surgery.
• Patrick Manson begins studying filariasis infection in humans.
• Meharry Medical College founded in Nashville, Tennessee as the Medical Department of Central Tennessee College; it is the first medical school for African Americans in the Southern United States.

• February 14 – Scottish American inventor Alexander Graham Bell and American electrical engineer Elisha Gray each file a patent for the telephone, initiating the Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell telephone controversy.
• March 7 – Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for the telephone.United States patent #174,466.
• March 10 – Alexander Graham Bell makes the first successful bi-directional telephone call, saying "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you".
• April – Joseph Zentmayer makes his Centennial microscope in the United States.
• April 15 – Russian-born electrical engineer Pavel Yablochkov first publicly demonstrates the 'Yablochkov candle', a form of arc lamp, in London.{{cite web|first=Nathan|last=Brewer|title=Engineering Hall of Fame: Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov|url=https://insight.ieeeusa.org/articles/engineering-hall-of-fame-pavel-nikolayevich-yablochkov/|date=2012-03-01|accessdate=2024-07-27|work=IEEE USA InSight}}
• May 17 – Nicolaus Otto files his patent for the four-stroke engine using the Otto cycle.{{cite book|first=Stephen|last=van Dulken|title=Inventing the 19th Century|location=London|publisher=British Library|year=2001|isbn=0-7123-0881-4|pages=104–5}}
• August 8 – Thomas Edison is granted a United States patent for his mimeograph.
• Emile Berliner invents an improved form of microphone (the carbon-button type) which will be adopted for Alexander Graham Bell's telephone.{{Cite magazine|title=Birth of the Microphone: How Sound Became Signal|language=en-us|magazine=Wired|url=https://www.wired.com/2011/01/birth-of-the-microphone/|access-date=2023-09-19|issn=1059-1028}}{{cite web|title=Early History of the Microphone|url=https://digilab.libs.uga.edu/scl/exhibits/show/steel_vintage_mics/mic_early_history|work=UGA Special Collections Library Online Exhibitions|access-date=2023-09-19}}
• Francis Edgar Stanley of Newton, Massachusetts, patents an atomizing paint distributor, a form of airbrush.United States patent #182,389.
• The Seth Thomas Clock Company is awarded a United States patent for an adjustable wind-up alarm clock.
• Thomas Hawksley first uses pressure grouting to control water leakage under an embankment dam at Tunstall Reservoir in Weardale, County Durham, England.{{cite ODNB|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12691|title=Hawksley, Thomas|year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/12691 |accessdate=2011-08-27}}{{cite book|first=R. W.|last=Rennison|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bv2BrOMo8cIC&pg=PA81|title=Civil Engineering Heritage: Northern England|page=81|isbn=9780727725189|year=1996}}{{cite book|first=A. Clive|last=Houlsby|title=Construction and Design of Cement Grouting; A Guide to Grouting in Rock Foundations|publisher=Wiley|year=1990|isbn=0-471-51629-5}}{{cite journal|authorlink=Rudolph Glossop|first=Rudolph|last=Glossop|title=The Invention and Development of Injection processes Part II: 1850-1960|publisher=British Geotechnical Association|journal=Géotechnique|volume=11|issue=4|year=1961|pages=255–279|doi=10.1680/geot.1961.11.4.255}}
• Melville Reuben Bissell files a United States patent for an improved carpet sweeper.{{cite book|last=Baxter|first=Albert|year=1891|title=History of the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan|publisher=Munsell}}

• October 4 – First classes begin at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.{{cite web|first=Henry C|last=Dethloff|authorlink=Henry C. Dethloff|title=Texas A&M University|work=The Handbook of Texas Online|publisher=Texas State Historical Association|url=http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/kct08|accessdate=2011-11-18}}
• Elizabeth Bragg becomes the first woman to graduate with a civil engineering degree in the United States, from University of California, Berkeley.{{cite web|publisher=University of California, Berkeley |title=WEP Milestones |url=http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/bpi/jmep/milestones.html |work=Berkeley Engineering |accessdate=2011-11-24 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120110020425/http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/bpi/jmep/milestones.html |archivedate=2012-01-10 }}

• Copley Medal: Claude Bernard{{cite web |title=Copley Medal {{!}} British scientific award |url=https://www.britannica.com/science/Copley-Medal |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |accessdate=23 July 2020 |language=en}}
• Wollaston Medal: Thomas Henry Huxley

• January 5 – Lucien Bull (died 1972), Irish-born pioneer in chronophotography.
• January 23 – Otto Diels (died 1954), German Nobel Prize winner in chemistry.
• February 15 – E. H. "Chinese" Wilson (died 1930), English-born plant collector.
• April 22 – Robert Bárány (died 1936), Viennese-born Nobel Prize winner in medicine.
• June 13 – William Sealy Gosset (died 1937), English statistician.
• October 3 – Gabrielle Howard née Matthaei (died 1930), English-born plant physiologist.
• November 9 – Hideyo Noguchi (died 1928), Japanese bacteriologist.
• November 19 – Tatyana Afanasyeva (died 1964), Russian-born mathematician.
• November 25 – Paul Nitsche (executed 1948) Nazi German psychiatrist and eugenicist.

• November 26 – Karl Ernst von Baer (born 1792), Baltic German naturalist.
• Undated – Anna Volkova (born 1800), Russian chemist.

{{reflist}}

Category:19th century in science

Category:1870s in science