Enlightenment · Europe · Science

1673

Leeuwenhoek Observes Microorganisms

1673

A Delft draper named Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, grinding lenses as a hobby with obsessive precision, peered through a single-lens microscope at a drop of lake water and saw tiny creatures darting and tumbling in a world no human had witnessed. He called them animalcules. Microbiology had begun in a haberdasher's workshop.