- February 11 - Melville Weston Fuller 8th chief justice of US.
- October 21 - Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, creator of the Nobel Prize
- December 20 - Dr. Samuel Mudd, doctor to John Wilkes Booth
- Charles Babbage described his Analytical engine. (see also History of computing)
- The dawn of biochemistry : discovery of the first enzyme, diastase, by Anselme Payen.