Famous People Who Died In 1647

Evangelista Torricelli, a student of Galileo, later made a name for himself as a physicist and a mathematician with his invention of the barometer. He also laid down the Torricelli’s theorem and discovered the Torricellian vacuum. The torr, a unit of pressure, bears his name.

Seventeenth-century Italian mathematician Bonaventura Cavalieri is largely remembered as someone who set the tone for integral calculus with his work on geometry. While teaching math at the University of Bologna, he developed his iconic method of indivisibles. He also introduced Italy to logarithms through his book Directorium Generale Uranometricum.

Christen Sørensen Longomontanus was a Danish astronomer best remembered for developing Tycho Brahe's geoheliocentric model of the universe. Brahe's geoheliocentric model, which was also known as the Tychonic system, was widely accepted at that time. Christen Sørensen Longomontanus also published major works in astronomy and mathematics such as Systematis Mathematici and Disputatio de Eclipsibus. 

Zhang Xianzhong reigned as the Emperor of the Xi dynasty from 1644 to 1646. He is best remembered for his role in the massacres that depopulated Sichuan during the 1640s. Zhang Xianzhong was killed in 1647 by the invading Qing army.

Thomas Morton was a colonist in North America who immigrated from Devon, England. Morton was also a social reformer, writer, and lawyer best remembered for studying Native American culture. He is credited with founding the colony of Merrymount, present-day Quincy, Massachusetts.

Nicholas Stone was an English sculptor and architect who served as the master-mason to James I and later Charles I. He is credited to have built the building of Inigo Jones' Banqueting House, among other prominent buildings. He also executed elaborate funerary monuments considered avant-garde by English standards in his era. He married Dutch sculptor Hendrick de Keyser’s daughter.   

Born to a soldier, Diego Duque de Estrada was orphaned as a child and was raised by his cousin. Later accused of the murder of his cousin’s daughter, who was his fiancée, he escaped prison and joined the army of the Duke of Osuna. He later joined the order of San Juan de Dios.

Thomas Hooker was an English colonial leader. Hooker is credited with founding the Colony of Connecticut and is hence referred to as the Father of Connecticut. Thomas Hooker, who played a major role in the development of colonial New England, was one of the founders of the state of Connecticut as well as the city of Hartford.