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Christian Huygens (d.1695), Dutch astronomer, discoverer of Saturn's rings, was born. He invented the pendulum and along with Newton showed that any body revolving around a center is actually accelerating constantly toward that center, even though the rate of rotation remains constant.
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saac Newton (d.1727), English physicist, mathematician and scientist, was born in Woolsthorpe (Grantham), Lincolnshire, England. He enunciated the laws of motion and the law of gravity.
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The Leyden jar, capable of storing static electricity, was invented by German cleric Ewald Georg von Kleist. Also about this time Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leiden (Leyden) independently came up with the same idea.
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Benjamin Franklin and his son tested the relationship between electricity and lightning by flying a kite in a thunder storm. Some sources date this to June 10.
