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The year 1779 in science and technology involved some significant events.

• March 23 – Edward Pigott discovers the Black Eye Galaxy (M64).
• May 5 – The spiral galaxy M61 is discovered in the constellation Virgo by Barnabus Oriani.

• Horace-Bénédict de Saussure begins publication of Voyages dans les Alpes.

• Étienne Bézout publishes Théorie générale des équations algébriques in Paris, containing original work on elimination theory.

• Jean-Paul Marat publishes Découvertes de M. Marat sur le feu, l'électricité et la lumière (Discoveries of Mr Marat on Fire, Electricity and Light).

• January 8 – Bryan Higgins is granted a British patent for hydraulic cement (stucco) for use as an exterior plaster.^[1]
• May – Boulton and Watt's Smethwick Engine is brought into service for pumping on the Birmingham Canal Navigations; two centuries later it will become the oldest working steam engine in the world.
• James Pickard first applies a crank and flywheel to a Newcomen atmospheric engine to produce circular motion.
• The Iron Bridge is erected across the River Severn in Shropshire, England; the first all-cast-iron bridge ever built.^[2] It will open to traffic on January 1, 1781.^[3]
• The spinning mule is perfected by the Lancashire inventor Samuel Crompton.^[3]
• The British Royal Navy adopts the carronade.
• The Girandoni Air Rifle is designed in Austria.

• January 5 – General Zebulon Pike, American explorer (died 1813)
• May 1 – Alexander Morison, Scottish physician and psychiatrist (died 1866)
• August 7
  • Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Swedish chemist (died 1848)
  • Louis de Freycinet, French explorer of coastal regions of Western Australia (died 1842)

• January 22 – Jeremiah Dixon, English surveyor and astronomer (born 1733)
• February 14 – James Cook, English explorer (born 1728)
• June 28 – Martha Daniell Logan, American botanist (born 1704)
• October 18 – Patrick d'Arcy, Irish-born mathematician (born 1725)
• November 16 – Pehr Kalm, Swedish botanist (born 1716)
• undated – John Kay, English inventor (born 1704)