Seeing further: the story of science & the Royal Society — BILL BRYSON

1. 1. The Royal Society was founded in 1660 by a dozen men after a lecture by Christopher Wren, aiming to promote useful knowledge.
2. 2. The Royal Society invented scientific publishing and peer review, made English the primary language of scientific discourse, and systematized experimentation.
3. 3. Thomas Bayes' theorem, published posthumously by the Royal Society in 1763, had no practical use in his lifetime but is now used in climate modeling, astrophysics, and stock market analysis.
4. 4. The Royal Society has always been international, electing foreign members like Marcello Malpighi and Christiaan Huygens early on, and refusing to expel enemy Fellows during world wars.
5. 5. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, a linen draper with no formal education, submitted over 200 papers to the Royal Society, discovering protozoa and bacteria through hand-made microscopes.
6. 6. The Royal Society has elected only 8,200 members in 350 years, including Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, and Dorothy Hodgkin.
7. 7. Hermann Sprengel, inventor of the vacuum pump enabling electric lighting, was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1878, nearly 15 years before any German institution recognized him.
8. 8. The Royal Society's archives include Newton's death mask and a reflecting telescope he made in 1669, along with papers from the 1878 eclipse expedition to confirm or disprove the planet Vulcan.
9. 9. The Royal Society nearly declined in the 1740s due to financial troubles, but revived through leaders like Isaac Newton, Joseph Banks, and Humphry Davy.
10. 10. Today the Royal Society supports 3,000 scientists worldwide through 350 research fellowships and grants, publishes seven journals, and maintains links with 91 science academies.
11. 11. John Lubbock, a banker and Fellow, coined the terms palaeolithic, mesolithic, and neolithic, and pushed through the Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1882, saving sites like Avebury and Stonehenge.
12. 12. The Royal Society is more central to British life than most realize, with 4,355 entries in the Dictionary of National Biography, nearly as many as the Church of England.