Question: when were microscopes created and by who?

Alison Thomson answered on 10 Nov 2014:

The Romans used to look through different shaped pieces of glass. They found that looking through one that was thick in the middle and thin at the edges made objects appear bigger – a magnifying glass! This was around 100AD, but much much later on, ~1590, two Dutchmen (Zaccharias Janssen and his dad) created the first proper microscope by putting lots of these magnifying glasses in a tube, which made objects appear even bigger.

The reason we call them microscopes is from the greek mikrós, “small” and skopeîn, “to look”.

Good question!