Famous People Who Died In 1783

Leonhard Euler was a Swiss physicist, mathematician, logician, geographer, astronomer, and engineer. He is credited with making influential and important mathematical discoveries, such as graph theory and infinitesimal calculus. Widely regarded as one of the greatest and most prolific mathematicians of all time, Leonhard Euler also made pioneering contributions to analytic number theory and topology.

Capability Brown was an English landscape architect and gardener. Regarded as the most popular figure in English landscape garden style history, Brown is also considered England's greatest gardener by many. Capability Brown is credited with designing more than 170 parks. His work had such an impact that the contributions of his predecessors William Kent and Charles Bridgeman are often overlooked.

Jean le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. He is credited with coming up with d'Alembert's formula, a solution to the one-dimensional wave equation, which is named after him. His life and work inspired Andrew Crumey's 1996 novel, D'Alembert's Principle.

Eighteenth-century Catalan Spanish composer Antonio Soler is remembered for his church music. Educated at a choir school, he later became a teacher of the organ and the harpsichord for the royal family. A master of Baroque music, he also invented the keyboard instrument afinador and penned works on music theory.

Physician William Hunter is remembered for his efforts in making obstetrics a branch of medicine. After observing medical students in France, he introduced the use of cadavers for dissection in Britain. The Hunterian Museum in Scotland started with a collection of his belongings, including books and works of art.

German-Austrian Franz Xaver Messerschmidt was a court sculptor in Vienna but was later forced to move to Pressburg, now Bratislava, where he worked on a series of over 60 heads, made of either tin alloy or alabaster. The heads have peculiar expressions, but their meaning hasn’t yet been unearthed.

Francisco Salzillo was an 18th-century Spanish sculptor. He worked exclusively on religious themes and almost always used polychromed wood as his medium. Hundreds of the pieces he made are distributed throughout the Region of Murcia. Unfortunately, many of his works were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. His great nativity scene is considered one of his masterpieces.