Portal:History of science/Selected anniversaries/December 31
- 1514 – Birth of Andreas Vesalius, Flemish anatomist (d. 1564)
- 1610 – Death of Ludolph van Ceulen, German mathematician (b. 1540)
- 1679 – Death of Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Italian physiologist and physicist (b. 1608)
- 1719 – Death of John Flamsteed, English astronomer (b. 1646)
- 1879 – Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time
- 1894 – Death of Thomas Joannes Stieltjes, Dutch mathematician (b. 1856)
- 1905 – Death of Alexander Popov, Russian physicist (b. 1859)
- 1937 – Birth of Avram Hershko, Israeli biologist, Nobel laureate
- 2003 – Death of Arthur R. von Hippel German-born physicist (b. 1898)