Hermann Ebbinghaus was born. A pioneer in the scientific study of memory, Ebbinghaus is best known was his landmark work 'Über das Gedächtnis' first published in 1885 and later translated into English under the title 'Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology' in 1913.

Drawing upon innovative quantitative measures, most notably nonsense syllables; this classic book by Ebbinghaus investigated several aspects of memory, including learning, retention, association and reproduction and introduced a series of enduring concepts such as the learning curve, the forgetting curve and the spacing effect.