1587 in science

Exploration

• c. March – An edition of Peter Martyr d'Anghiera's De Orbe Novo edited by Richard Hakluyt is published in Paris with a new map of the Americas.

  Mathematics

• Franciscus Patricius publishes Della nuova geometria in Ferrara.

  Births

• January 5 – Xu Xiake, Chinese explorer and geographer
• January 8 – Johannes Fabricius, Frisian astronomer
• October 22 – Joachim Jungius, German mathematician, logician and philosopher of science
• Song Yingxing, Chinese encyclopedist

  Deaths

• January 28 – Francisco Hernández de Toledo, Spanish physician and botanist
• Possible date – Humphrey Baker, English arithmetician