1806 in science

Biology

• July 3 – Michael Keens of Isleworth, England, selects the Keens Imperial cultivar of strawberry from many hybrids, which becomes a popular commercial breed in this century.
• Publication begins in London of the Flora Graeca collected by John Sibthorp.
• Pierre André Latreille begins publication in France of Genera crustaceorum et insectorum, secundum ordinem naturalem ut familias disposita.

Chemistry

• November 20 – Humphry Davy presents the results of his researches in the electrolysis of water to the Royal Society of London.
• Louis Nicolas Vauquelin and Pierre Jean Robiquet isolate asparagine in crystalline form from asparagus juice in France, the first amino acid identified.

Exploration

• August – English seal hunter Abraham Bristow discovers the Auckland Islands.

Mathematics

• Jean-Robert Argand introduces the Argand diagram.
• Adrien-Marie Legendre gives the first published application of the method of least squares, in a supplement to his Nouvelles méthodes pour la détermination des orbites des comètes.

Medicine

• John Bell concludes publication of The Principles of Surgery in two volumes. Its treatment of arterial surgery in particular ranks him as a founder of vascular surgery. His brother Charles Bell publishes Essays on The Anatomy of Expression in Painting.

Technology

• October 7 – Carbon paper patented by Ralph Wedgwood in the United Kingdom.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Thomas Andrew Knight

Births

• January 14 – Matthew Fontaine Maury, American oceanographer
• February 14 – Joseph-François Malgaigne, French surgeon
• February 18 – Eduard Heis, German mathematician and astronomer
• April 9 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel, British civil engineer
• June 12 – John A. Roebling, German American bridge engineer
• June 27 – Augustus De Morgan, British logician
• November 21 – Alexander Henry Haliday, Irish entomologist
• December 11
• * Otto Wilhelm Hermann von Abich, German geologist
• * Alfred Swaine Taylor, English toxicologist, "father of British forensic medicine"
• Approximate date – Luther V. Bell, American psychiatric physician

Deaths

• c. January?? – Mungo Park, Scottish explorer of West Africa
• April 5 – Benjamin Bell, Scottish surgeon
• June 23 – Mathurin Jacques Brisson, French zoologist
• August 3 – Michel Adanson, French botanist
• August 23 – Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, French physicist
• October 9 – Benjamin Banneker, African-American astronomer and surveyor