Claim: Riemannian geometry, a concept that deals with geometric shapes that are defined in nature, was first generalized in the 19th century by Bernhard Riemann—a German mathematician who is also known for his work on Fourier series.
Evidence: Riemannian geometry studies Riemannian manifolds, smooth manifolds with a Riemannian metric. This is a concept of distance expressed by means of a smooth positive definite symmetric bilinear form defined on the tangent space at each point. 
Riemannian geometry is the branch of differential geometry that studies Riemannian manifolds, smooth manifolds with a Riemannian metric, i.e. with an inner product on the tangent space at each point that varies smoothly from point to point. This gives, in particular, local notions of angle, length of curves, surface area and volume.