1863 in science

• August 1 – Friedrich Bayer founds the chemical manufacturing company of Bayer at Barmen in Germany. • Teerfarbenfabrik Meister, Lucius & Co. of Höchst (Frankfurt) in Germany produce a green dye from coal tar. • French chemist Angelo Mariani produces the first commercially successful coca wine. ==Cryptography==

• German military officer Friedrich Kasiski publishes Die Geheimschriften und die Dechiffrir-Kunst ("Secret writing and the Art of Deciphering"), the first published general method for cryptanalysis of polyalphabetic ciphers, especially the Vigenère cipher. ==Life sciences==

• August 7 – Amalie Dietrich arrives in Australia to begin a decade of collecting specimens in natural history and anthropology. • Max Schultze advances cell theory with the observation that animal and vegetable protoplasm are identical. • The first outbreak of phylloxera on the European mainland is observed, in the vineyards of the southern Rhône region of France. • Henry Walter Bates publishes The Naturalist on the River Amazons. ==Medicine==

• February 17 – First meeting of what will become the International Committee of the Red Cross is held in Geneva, Switzerland, following the lead of humanitarian Henry Dunant. • William Banting publishes Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public in London, the first popular low-carbohydrate diet. • Ivan Sechenov publishes Refleksy golovnogo mozga ("Reflexes of the brain"). • Granula, the first manufactured breakfast cereal, is invented by nutrionist James Caleb Jackson in the United States. ==Meteorology==

• The Paris Observatory begins to publish weather maps. ==Paleontology==

• Richard Owen publishes the first description of a fossilised bird, Archaeopteryx, from the specimen in London's British Museum. ==Physics==

• January – John Tyndall first explains the workings of the greenhouse effect. ==Technology==

• February 10 – Alanson Crane patents a fire extinguisher. • April 14 – William Bullock is granted a United States patent for improvements to the rotary printing press to use a continuous web or roll of paper to be printed on both sides, the first machine designed especially for curved stereotype plates. • Spring – John Pratt builds a practical form of typewriter in the United States. • July – The tiny Confederate States of America hand-propelled submarine H. L. Hunley is first tested successfully (although thirteen crew – including her inventor Horace Lawson Hunley – are lost in two sinkings later in the year). • October 23 – The Ffestiniog Railway in North Wales introduces steam locomotives into general service, the first time this has been done anywhere in the world on a public railway of such a narrow gauge (2 ft (60 cm)). • December 19 – Linoleum patented in the United Kingdom. ==Events and institutions==

• March 3 – National Academy of Sciences incorporated in the United States. • Summer – The Chōshū Five leave Japan secretly to study Western science and technology in Britain, at University College London, part of the ending of sakoku. • November 29 – Polytechnic University of Milan founded as the Istituto Tecnico Superiore. ==Publications==

• January 31 – The first of Jules Verne's scientifically inspired Voyages Extraordinaires, the novel Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon), is published in Paris. ==Awards==

• Copley Medal: Adam Sedgwick • Wollaston Medal for Geology: Gustav Bischof ==Births==

• March 25 – Simon Flexner (d. 1946), American pathologist and bacteriologist. • April 7 – André Rochon-Duvigneaud (d. 1952), French ophthalmologist. • April 29 – Signe Häggman (d. 1911), Finnish pioneer of physical education of the disabled. • May 14 – John Charles Fields (d. 1932), Canadian mathematician. • July 12 • Albert Calmette (d. 1933), French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist. • Paul Drude (d. 1906), German physicist. • October 16 – Beverly Thomas Galloway (d. 1938), American plant pathologist. • November 25 – Ioan Cantacuzino (d. 1934), Romanian microbiologist. • December 5 – Paul Painlevé (d. 19333), mathematician and statesman, 62nd Prime Minister of France. • December 11 – Annie Jump Cannon (d. 1941), American astronomer and academic. • Undated – Cuthbert Christy (d. 1932), English medical investigator, zoologist and explorer. ==Deaths==

• March 7 – Charles Wilkins Short (b. 1794), American botanist. • June 25 – Thomas Evans Blackwell (b. 1819), English civil and hydraulic engineer. • July 21 – Josephine Kablick (b. 1787), Czech botanist and paleontologist. • December 8 – Jacques Etienne Chevalley de Rivaz (b. 1801), Swiss-born physician ==References==