- Ages 8+
- 150x magnification

The first microscope to be developed was the optical microscope. Evidence points to the first microscope appearing in the Netherlands in the late 1590s, and was probably an invention of eyeglass makers Hans Lippershey and Zacharias Janssen. There are other claims that the microscope and telescope were both invented by Roger Bacon in the 1200s, however this theory has insufficient proof to back it up. Giovanni Faber coined the name “microscope” for Galileo Galilei’s compound microscope in 1625. Galileo himself had called it the “occhiolino”, or “little eye”.