May 8

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  1788: Physician, geologist, and botanist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli dies. He has been called the "first anational European" and the "Linnaeus of the Austrian Empire".

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  1794: Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror by revolutionists, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme générale, is tried, convicted and guillotined in one day in Paris.

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  1873: Economist, civil servant, and philosopher John Stuart Mill dies. He was one of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism, and the first Member of Parliament to call for women's suffrage.

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  1959: Mathematician Renato Caccioppoli takes his own life. Caccioppoli contributed to mathematical analysis, including the theory of functions of several complex variables, functional analysis, and measure theory.

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  1960: Mathematician and academic J. H. C. Whitehead dies. During the Second World War, he worked with the codebreakers at Bletchley Park.