Famous People Who Died In 1762

Nicolas Louis de Lacaille was a French astronomer and geodesist. He is credited to have named 14 out of the 88 constellations. He studied rhetoric, theology, and philosophy and became an abbot. He later found employment as a professor of mathematics in the Mazarin college and was made a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. 

Dorothea Erxleben was an 18th-century German woman who became the first female medical doctor in the country. She was the first woman to be licensed by a regulating medical body to practice medicine in the world. She fought for her right to practice medicine from a young age and received her MD from the University of Halle in 1754. 

Through his stunningly realistic masterpiece, Il Disinganno, or Release from Deception, which he completed in 7 years, Italian sculptor Francesco Queirolo symbolically showed a man’s release from sins. The fisherman’s net in the sculpture is so intricately carved that people don’t believe it’s made out of marble.

Tobias Mayer is best remembered for his extensive research on the Moon and lunar tables, which revolutionized the study of longitude at sea. Born amid poverty, he taught himself math and began his career as a math teacher. He eventually chaired economy and math at the University of Göttingen.

British admiral George Anson, or Baron Anson, is remembered for his exploits as an able naval administrator, especially during the War of Jenkins' Ear and the Seven Years’ War. His warship the Centurion was the first British warship to have entered Chinese territory. He also reformed the navy to a great extent.

Trained in Islamic education by his father, who established the Madrasah-i Rahimiyah, Shah Waliullah Dehlawi had memorized the Qur'an by age 7. He grew up to be a prominent Islamic theologian who modernized Islam with ideas such as taṭbīq and the practice of ijtihad. Asrār al-dīn remains his best-known work.