1610
Galileo names Jupiter's newly discovered moons the Medicean Stars to secure Medici family patronage.

182?
John Maurice Herbert anonymously gives undergraduate Charles Darwin his first microscope.

1882
John D Rockefeller creates the Standard Oil Trust, which was criticised and eventually disbanded for being monopolistic. But it also funded Rockefeller's substantial donations to medical and scientific research.

1883
Andrew Carnegie establishes the first of over 2,500 free public libraries, in the cause of promoting self-education.

1895
Dynamite manufacturer Alfred Nobel establishes his eponymous prizes after reading his own obituary, published prematurely by accident in a French newspaper, in which he was criticized for amassing wealth through the making of weapons.

1901
The first Nobel Prizes are awarded.

1929-30
Daniel and Florence Guggenheim provide Robert Goddard with US$100,000, getting his early rockets off the ground during the Great Depression. NASA later names a space centre after him.

1953
Jonas Salk develops the polio vaccine with funds from the Sarah Scaife Foundation, a philanthropic venture financed by a private family's industrial, oil and banking fortune.

2000
Bill and Melinda Gates seed their foundation with US$106 million.

2005
UK-based Wellcome Trust becomes the first charity to fund research on the condition that results are published on an open-access database.

2006
Warren E. Buffett gives more than $30 billion to the Gates Foundation, roughly doubling its size and making it the largest charitable organization in the world.