Benjamin Banneker was an African-American naturalist, mathematician, astronomer and almanac author. A landowner, he also worked as a surveyor and farmer.
David Rittenhouse was an American astronomer, inventor, clockmaker, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman, and public official. Rittenhouse was a member of the American Philosophical Society and the first director of the United States Mint.
Brood X, the Great Eastern Brood, is one of 15 broods of periodical cicadas that appear regularly throughout the eastern United States. The brood's first major emergence after 2021 is predicted to occur during 2038.
Cleveland Abbe was an American meteorologist and advocate of time zones.
The Washington meridians are four meridians that were used as prime meridians in the United States which pass through Washington, D.C. The four that have been specified are:
- through the Capitol
- through the White House
- through the old Naval Observatory
- through the new Naval Observatory.
Andrew Ellicott was an American land surveyor who helped map many of the territories west of the Appalachians, surveyed the boundaries of the District of Columbia, continued and completed Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's work on the plan for Washington, D.C., and served as a teacher in survey methods for Meriwether Lewis.
Jefferson Pier, Jefferson Stone, or the Jefferson Pier Stone, in Washington, D.C., marks the second prime meridian of the United States even though it was never officially recognized, either by presidential proclamation or by a resolution or act of Congress.
Bern Dibner was an electrical engineer, industrialist, and historian of science and technology. He originated two major US library collections in the history of science and technology.
The boundary markers of the original District of Columbia are the 40 milestones that marked the four lines forming the boundaries between the states of Maryland and Virginia and the square of 100 square miles (259 km2) of federal territory that became the District of Columbia in 1801. Working under the supervision of three commissioners that President George Washington had appointed in 1790 in accordance with the federal Residence Act, a surveying team led by Major Andrew Ellicott placed these markers in 1791 and 1792. Among Ellicott's assistants were his brothers Joseph and Benjamin Ellicott, Isaac Roberdeau, George Fenwick, Isaac Briggs and an African American astronomer, Benjamin Banneker.
Benjamin Ellicott was a surveyor, a county judge and a member of the United States House of Representatives from the State of New York.
Magicicada septendecim, sometimes called the Pharaoh cicada or the 17-year locust, is native to Canada and the United States and is the largest and most northern species of periodical cicada with a 17-year lifecycle.
Benjamin Banneker: SW 9 Intermediate Boundary Stone, also known as an Intermediate Stone of the District of Columbia, is a surveyors' boundary marker stone. The stone is located on the original boundary of the District of Columbia The stone is now on the boundary of Arlington County, Virginia and the City of Falls Church. It is within the two jurisdiction's Benjamin Banneker Park at 6620 18th Street North, Arlington.
Amasa Holcomb (1787–1875) was an American farmer, surveyor, civil engineer, businessman, politician, and manufacturer of surveying instruments and telescopes. From instruments he made he observed the total solar eclipse of June 16, 1806. He made astronomical computations from his observations and published almanacs for the partial solar eclipses of 1807 and 1808 from his work. An asteroid, 45512 Holcomb, was named after him.
The Washington Family by Edward Savage is a life-sized group portrait of the Washington family, including U.S. President George Washington, First Lady Martha Washington, two of her grandchildren and a black servant, most likely an enslaved man whose identity was not recorded. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., presently displays the large painting.
According to accounts that began to appear during the 1960s or earlier, a substantial mythology has exaggerated the accomplishments of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), an African-American naturalist, mathematician, astronomer and almanac author who also worked as a surveyor and farmer.
Martha Ellicott Tyson was an Elder of the Quaker Meeting in Baltimore, an anti-slavery and women's rights advocate, historian, and a co-founder of Swarthmore College. She was married to Nathan Tyson, a merchant whose father was the emancipator and abolitionist Elisha Tyson. She was the great-great grandmother of Maryland state senator James A. Clark Jr. (1918–2006). She was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame in 1988.
George Ellicott (1760–1832) was a son of Andrew Ellicott, who with his two brothers founded Ellicott's Mills, Maryland. He was a mathematician, an amateur astronomer, a younger cousin of surveyor Major Andrew Ellicott and a friend of Benjamin Banneker. He was the father of Martha Ellicott Tyson, who became an Elder of the Quaker Meeting in Baltimore, an anti-slavery and women's rights advocate, the author of a biography of Benjamin Banneker, a founder of Swarthmore College and an inductee to the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame.
Thomas Voigt was an American clockmaker. He apprenticed under his father, Henry Voigt, an American Revolution era clockmaker and inventor.
A United States postage stamp and the names of a number of recreational and cultural facilities, schools, streets and other facilities and institutions throughout the United States have commemorated Benjamin Banneker's documented and mythical accomplishments throughout the years since he lived (1731–1806). Among such memorializations of this free African American almanac author, surveyor, landowner and farmer who had knowledge of mathematics, astronomy and natural history was a biographical verse that Rita Dove, a future Poet Laureate of the United States, wrote in 1983 while on the faculty of Arizona State University.
