Annus mirabilis


Annus mirabilis is a Latin phrase that means "wonderful year", "miraculous year" or "amazing year". This term was originally used to refer to the year 1666, and today is used to refer to several years during which events of major importance are remembered. Prior to this, however, Thomas Dekker used the phrase mirabilis annus in his 1603 pamphlet The Wonderful Year.

1543 – The year of science

The beginning of the Scientific Revolution when:
The military successes of James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose in Scotland in the War of the Three Kingdoms during 1644–1645 are sometimes called "annus mirabilis".

1666 – The year of wonders

In 1666 Isaac Newton, aged 23, made revolutionary inventions and discoveries in calculus, motion, optics and gravitation. As such, it was later called Isaac Newton's Annus Mirabilis. It was in this year that Isaac Newton was alleged to have observed an apple falling from a tree, and in which he in any case hit upon the law of universal gravitation. He was afforded the time to work on his theories due to the closure of Cambridge University by an outbreak of plague.

1759 – William Pitt

A series of victories by the British military in 1759 in North America, Europe, India, and in various naval engagements, is occasionally referred to as William Pitt's annus mirabilis, and was the decisive year of the Seven Years' War.

1905 – Albert Einstein

It was in this year that Albert Einstein, aged 26, published important discoveries concerning the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, the special theory of relativity, and the famous E = mc2 equation. His four articles, collectively known as his Annus Mirabilis papers, were published in Annalen der Physik in 1905.