Isaac Newton Timeline

Following Cambridge's reopening after the plague, Newton was elected a fellow of Trinity College, securing his academic position and allowing him to pursue research with institutional support.

At just 26 years old, Newton succeeded Isaac Barrow as the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. In this role he lectured on optics and other subjects, though many of his lectures were poorly attended by students.

Image source: Lucasian Professor of Mathematics

After presenting his reflecting telescope to the Royal Society, Newton was elected a fellow. He soon published his first paper on optics in the Philosophical Transactions, which sparked intense debates with critics such as Robert Hooke.

Image source: Royal Society

Newton represented Cambridge University in the Convention Parliament that offered the crown to William III and Mary II following the Glorious Revolution. He served briefly again in Parliament from 1701 to 1702.

Through the influence of Charles Montagu, Newton became Warden of the Royal Mint during England's Great Recoinage. He took the post seriously, supervising the recoinage of English currency and combating widespread counterfeiting.

As Warden of the Mint, Newton aggressively pursued counterfeiters, going undercover in taverns and gathering evidence himself. He oversaw prosecutions and executions, including the notorious counterfeiter William Chaloner, who was hanged in 1699.

Newton was elevated to Master of the Mint, a lucrative sinecure he held until his death. He moved into official quarters, managed mint operations rigorously, and even attempted reforms of weights and measures across Britain.

Newton was elected President of the Royal Society upon Robert Hooke's death and retained the office for the rest of his life. He ruled the society autocratically, controlling publications and appointments while promoting Newtonian science throughout Europe.

Queen Anne knighted Isaac Newton during her royal visit to Trinity College, Cambridge, making him Sir Isaac Newton. He was one of the first scientists to be knighted, an honor likely tied to his political support and service at the Mint.

Image source: Knight Bachelor

For roughly three decades Newton conducted extensive alchemical experiments in his Cambridge laboratory, producing over a million words of notes. His chrysopoeia manuscripts reveal a deep engagement with hermetic traditions alongside his mathematical physics.

Image source: Isaac Newton's occult studies

Throughout his life Newton devoted enormous effort to theological study and biblical interpretation, holding anti-Trinitarian views he kept private since they were illegal. He also wrote extensively on prophecy and chronology, much of it unpublished during his lifetime.

Image source: Religious views of Isaac Newton

Newton suffered a nervous breakdown in 1693, withdrawing from correspondence and exhibiting paranoid behavior toward friends like John Locke and Samuel Pepys. Historians have attributed the episode to exhaustion, depression, or chronic mercury poisoning from alchemical experiments.

A bitter priority dispute erupted between Newton and Leibniz over who invented calculus. Newton had developed fluxions in the 1660s but Leibniz published first. A Royal Society commission, secretly orchestrated by Newton himself, declared in Newton's favor, though modern historians credit both men independently.

Image source: Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy

Newton supervised the publication of the second edition of the Principia, edited by Roger Cotes, which added a famous preface defending his theory of gravitation against Cartesian critics and included refinements to lunar theory.

The final edition of the Principia overseen by Newton was published in 1726, incorporating corrections, new observations including cometary data, and refinements proposed through correspondence with astronomers.

Newton died in his sleep at age 84 at Kensington, London, never having married. His body lay in state and he received a grand funeral, being buried in Westminster Abbey among kings and national heroes, a rare honor for a man of learning.

Image source: Later life of Isaac Newton

Newton was interred in the nave of Westminster Abbey beneath an elaborate monument featuring figures symbolizing his discoveries. Voltaire famously remarked that England honored a mathematician the way other nations buried their kings.

Image source: Westminster Abbey

A year after his death, Newton's chronological studies were published as The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, revealing the depth of his historical and theological scholarship that had remained hidden behind his scientific fame.

Image source: The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended