Researchers have discovered five 18th-century telescopes made of cow metatarsal bone. The telescopes may have been used to gaze across the seas. Skip to main content ...

Bath's Herschel Museum of Astronomy has acquired the instrument on long-term loan. ... An 18th-Century telescope, considered the "finest" example of its kind, has gone on display in Somerset.

LONDON — A device that helped medieval scientists tell time will remain in Britain after the British Museum scrambled to come up with the money to buy it.

Nations used astronomy as a means of peaceful exchange in the 18th century—until the British Empire stepped in.

In the eighteenth century, from opposite ends of the world, a debate raged between two scholars over a seemingly esoteric question: did Chinese history predate Judeo-Christian antiquity?