1878 in science

• English astronomer Richard A. Proctor describes the Zone of Avoidance, the area of the night sky that is obscured by our own galaxy, for the first time.

• Death of last confirmed Cape Lion.{{cite web|url=http://www.novinky.cz/domaci/169450-v-muzeu-emila-holuba-se-ukryval-kapsky-lev.html|title=V muzeu Emila Holuba se ukrýval kapský lev|work=Novinky.cz|language=Czech|date=2009-05-22|accessdate=2011-08-26}}

• The rare earth element holmium is identified in erbium by Marc Delafontaine and Jacques-Louis Soret in Geneva{{cite journal|title=Sur les spectres d'absorption ultra-violets des terres de la gadolinite|first=Jacques-Louis|last=Soret|journal=Comptes rendus de l'Académie des sciences|volume=87|page=1062|year=1878|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3043m/f1124.table}} and by Per Teodor Cleve in Sweden.{{cite journal|title=Sur deux nouveaux éléments dans l'erbine|first=Per Teodor|last=Cleve|journal=Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences|volume=89|page=478|year=1879|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3046j/f499.table}}

• An Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom places Epping Forest in the care of the City of London Corporation to remain unenclosed.

• June 22 – Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld sets out on the year-long first navigation of the Northern Sea Route, the shipping lane from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean along the Siberian coast.

Image:Raising the obelisk.jpg (horizontal) being raised in London.]]

• Clarence King publishes Systematic Geology.
• Charles Lapworth publishes his analysis of the change in graptolite fossils through sequences of exposed shales in southern Scotland, establishing the importance of using graptolites to understand stratigraphic sequences.{{cite web|title=Dob's Linn |url=http://www.scottishgeology.com/outandabout/classic_sites/locations/dobs_linn.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20110518035418/http://www.scottishgeology.com/outandabout/classic_sites/locations/dobs_linn.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2011-05-18 |work=Scottish Geology |accessdate=2011-04-07 }}

• Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt describes the D'Hondt method of voting.
• English mathematician Rev. William Allen Whitworth is the first to publish Bertrand's ballot theorem.{{citation|title=An Introduction to Probability Theory and its Applications|volume=1|first=William|last=Feller|authorlink=William Feller|edition=3rd|publisher=Wiley|year=1968|page=69}}

• Cesare Lombroso publishes L'uomo delinquente, setting out his theory of criminal atavism.
• Ádám Politzer publishes Lehrbuch der Ohrenheilkunde, a major otology textbook.{{cite journal|last=Mudry|first=A.|title=The Role of Adam Politzer in the History of Otology|journal=American Journal of Otology|volume=21|pages=753–763|year=2000}}
• Dentists Act in the United Kingdom limits the title of "dentist" and "dental surgeon" to qualified and registered practitioners.{{cite journal|last=Gelbier|first=Stanley|title=125 Years of Developments in Dentistry|journal=British Dental Journal|year=2005|volume=199|pages=470|issue=7|doi=10.1038/sj.bdj.4812875|pmid=16215593|doi-access=free}}

• February 11 – The first weekly weather report is published in the United Kingdom.

• 31 Iguanodon skeletons are discovered in a coal mine at Bernissart, Belgium.
• The sauropod genus Diplodocus is first named by Othniel Charles Marsh as well as the Theropod genus Allosaurus. These are both from the Jurassic aged Morrison formation.

• January 18 – Romanian mathematician Spiru Haret defends his doctoral thesis,Sur l’invariabilité des grandes axes des orbites planétaires ("On the invariability of the major axis of planetary orbits"), University of Paris. which proves a result fundamental to the n-body problem in celestial mechanics.

• February 19 – The phonograph is patented by Thomas Edison. The oldest known audio recording is recovered from this device in 2012.{{cite journal|last=Rosen|first=Rebecca J.|date=2012-10-26|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/scientists-recover-the-sounds-of-19th-century-music-and-laughter-from-the-oldest-playable-american-recording/264147/#.UJFzCnboreA.facebook|title=Scientists Recover the Sounds of 19th-Century Music and Laughter From the Oldest Playable American Recording|work=The Atlantic|accessdate=2013-06-15}}
• March – The 'basic' process, enabling the use of phosphoric iron ore in steelmaking, developed at Blaenavon Ironworks by Percy Gilchrist and Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, is first made public.{{cite web|url=https://biography.wales/article/s-THOM-GIL-1850|first=William Llewelyn|last=Davies|title=Thomas, Sidney Gilchrist|work=Welsh Biography Online|year=2009|accessdate=2012-11-09}}
• May 22 – John Philip Holland's experimental powered submarine Holland I is launched in Paterson, New Jersey.
• June 15 – Eadweard Muybridge produces the sequence of stop-motion still photographs Sallie Gardner at a Gallop in California, a predecessor of silent film (capable of being viewed as an animation on a zoopraxiscope) demonstrating that all four feet of a galloping horse are off the ground at the same time.
• August – Cleopatra's Needle is raised onto its base in London.
• October 14 – The world's first recorded floodlit football fixture is played at Bramall Lane in Sheffield.
• December 18 – Joseph Swan of Newcastle upon Tyne in England announces his invention of an incandescent light bulb.{{cite book|first=Stephen|last=van Dulken|title=Inventing the 19th Century: the great age of Victorian inventions|location=London|publisher=British Library|year=2001|isbn=978-0-7123-0881-6|page=80}}
• December 31 – Karl Benz produces a two-stroke gas engine.
• William Crookes invents the Crookes tube which produces cathode rays.{{cite book|title=The Hutchinson Factfinder|publisher=Helicon|year=1999|isbn=978-1-85986-000-7 }}
• Osbourn Dorsey obtains a patent in the United States for a "door-holding device".210,762.
• Gustav Kessel obtains a patent in Germany for an espresso machine.{{cite web|title=Invention of the Espresso Machine|url=http://baristasroasting.com/page87.html|publisher=Barista's Roasting Co|accessdate=2012-06-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120428183530/http://baristasroasting.com/page87.html|archive-date=2012-04-28|url-status=dead}}
• Czech painter Karel Klíč perfects the photogravure process.
• Lester Allan Pelton produces the first operational Pelton wheel.{{cite web|url=http://www.hmdb.org/Marker.asp?Marker=12863|title=Miners Foundry – Allans Machine Shop Founded 1856|work=Historical Marker Database|accessdate=2011-09-03}}
• Remington, in the United States, introduce their No. 2 typewriter, the first with a shift key enabling production of lower as well as upper case characters.

• October 1 – Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University opens as Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College in the United States.

• Copley Medal: Jean Baptiste Boussingault{{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 for Geology: Thomas Wright

• January 1 – A. K. Erlang, Danish mathematician (died 1929)
• January 7 – Samuel James Cameron, Scottish obstetrician (died 1959)
• January 25 – Ernst Alexanderson, Swedish-born television pioneer (died 1975)
• February 5 – André Citroën, French automobile manufacturer (died 1935)
• February 8 – Martin Buber, Austrian philosopher (died 1965)
• February 10 – Jennie Smillie, Canadian gynecological surgeon (died 1981)
• February 28 – Pierre Fatou, French mathematician (died 1929)
• March 4 – Peter D. Ouspensky, Russian philosopher (died 1947)
• April 11 – Percy Lane Oliver, British pioneer of voluntary blood donation (died 1944)
• April 16 – Owen Thomas Jones, Welsh geologist (died 1967)
• June 3 – Barney Oldfield, American automobile racer and pioneer (died 1946)
• June 12 – James Oliver Curwood, American novelist and conservationist (died 1927)
• July 12 – Peeter Põld, Estonian politician and pedagogical scientist (died 1930)
• August 28 – George Whipple, American winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 1976)
• September 5 – Robert von Lieben, Austrian physicist (died 1913)
• September 13 – Matilde Moisant, American pilot (died 1964)
• October 1 – Helen Mayo, Australian pediatrician (died 1967)
• November 7 – Lise Meitner, Austrian-Swedish physicist (died 1968){{cite book |last1=Bailey Ogilvie |first1=Marilyn |last2=Harvey| first2=Joy |title=The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: L-Z | location=London |publisher=Routledge| year=2000 |isbn=978-0-41592-040-7 |page=877}}
• November 8 – Dorothea Bate, Welsh-born paleozoologist (died 1951)
• December 25 – Louis Chevrolet, Swiss-born race driver and automobile builder (died 1941)
• December 25 – Joseph Schenck, Russian-born film executive (died 1962)

• January 18 – William Stokes, Irish physician (born 1804)
• January 18 – Antoine César Becquerel, French scientist (born 1788)
• January 19 – Henri Victor Regnault, French physical chemist (born 1810)
• February 8 – Elias Magnus Fries, Swedish botanist (born 1794)
• February 10 – Claude Bernard, French physiologist (born 1813)
• February 26 – Angelo Secchi, Italian astronomer (born 1818)
• March 16 – William Banting, English undertaker and dietician (b. c.1796)
• May 13 – Joseph Henry, American physicist (born 1797)
• June 6 – Robert Stirling, Scottish clergyman and inventor (born 1790)
• July 23 – Baron Carl von Rokitansky, Bohemian pathologist (born 1804)
• September 25 – August Heinrich Petermann, German cartographer (born 1822)
• Friedrich Freese, German botanist (born 1794)

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Category:19th century in science

Category:1870s in science