1728 in science

Astronomy

• James Bradley uses stellar aberration to calculate the speed of light to be approximately 301,000 km/s.
• James Bradley observes nutation of the Earth's axis.

Botany

• September – Bartram's Garden, the oldest surviving botanic garden in North America, is established in Philadelphia by John Bartram.

Exploration

• July 14 – August 14 – Vitus Bering sails northward from the Kamchatka Peninsula, through the Bering Strait, and rounds Cape Dezhnev.

Physiology and medicine

• Pierre Fauchard publishes Le Chirurgien Dentiste, ou, Traité des Dents, the first comprehensive text on dentistry, including the first description of orthodontic braces.

Births

• February 13 – John Hunter, Scottish surgeon, pathologist and comparative anatomist
• March 20 – Samuel-Auguste Tissot, Swiss physician
• April 16 – Joseph Black, Scottish physicist and chemist
• August 26 – Johann Heinrich Lambert, Swiss polymath
• September 3 – Matthew Boulton, English mechanical engineer
• October 27 – James Cook, English explorer

Deaths

• April 25 – John Woodward, English naturalist
• August 11 – William Sherard, English botanist
• Caleb Threlkeld, Irish botanist