1.
HMS Resolution
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Several ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Resolution. HMS Resolution, a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line launched 1667, rebuilt 1698, HMS Resolution, a 70-gun third rate launched 1705, run ashore to avoid capture 1707. HMS Resolution, a 70-gun third rate launched 1708, wrecked 1711, HMS Resolution, a 74-gun third rate launched 1758, run aground and lost 1759 at the Battle of Quiberon Bay. HMS Resolution, a 74-gun third rate launched 1770, broken up 1813, HMS Resolution, the vessel of Captain James Cook in his explorations. HMS Resolution, a cutter purchased 1779, went missing in the North Sea June 1797, HMS Resolution, a Royal Sovereign-class battleship in service from 1893 to 1914. HMS Resolution, a Revenge-class battleship in service from 1915 to 1944, HMS Resolution, lead ship of the Resolution-class ballistic missile submarines in service from 1966 to 1994. Also Resolution was a gunboat that the garrison at Gibraltar launched in June 1782 during the Great Siege of Gibraltar, each was armed with an 18-pounder gun, and received a crew of 21 men drawn from Royal Navy vessels stationed at Gibraltar. HMS Resolution, a cutter in the West Indies, date of acquisition unknown, on 10 November 1800 Captain Peter Halkett of HMS Apollo captured the Spanish sloop of war Resolution in the West Indies. She was armed with 18 guns and had a crew of 149 men, Halkett reported that she was the former British navy cutter Resolution. Resolution was in such a state that after a few days Halkett destroyed her. Resolution, a victualing hoy, of 75 tons, offered for sale on 22 September 1828, HMNZS Resolution, a survey ship of the Royal New Zealand Navy in service between 1997 and 2012. Named after the 1771-launched Resolution commanded by James Cook
2.
Matavai Bay
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Matavai Bay is a bay on the north coast of Tahiti, the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia. It is in the commune of Mahina, approximately 8 km east of the capital Papeete, the bay was visited by European voyages of discovery in the second half of 18th century for wood, water and supplies. The first contacts with the native Tahitians were difficult, since on the 24, in retaliation, the English sailors opened fire on the canoes and on the crowds on the hills. In reaction to this powerful counter-attack, the inhabitants of the bay laid down offerings for the English, following this episode, Samuel Wallis was able to establish cordial relations with the female chieftain Oberea and remained on the island until 27 July 1767. Wallis named the bay Port Royal Harbour, on 2 April 1768 Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, completing the first French circumnavigation in La Boudeuse and Étoile, landed in Matavai Bay. He stayed about ten days on the island, which he called “Nouvelle-Cythère“, or New Cythera, because of the welcome he had received. A primary objective of James Cooks first voyage, in Endeavour, was to observe the 1769 Transit of Venus from the South Pacific, Tahiti was chosen for the observations based on Walliss recent discoveries. Endeavours third lieutenant was John Gore, who had served as mate on Dolphin. Cook anchored in the bay on 13 April 1769, a sandy spit on the northeast end of Matavai Bay - named Point Venus by Cook - was chosen for the observatory. The location of the observatory would be known as Fort Venus, Cook departed on 13 July 1769. Cook also visited Matavai Bay on 26 August-1 September 1773 and 22 April-14 May 1774 during his second voyage, Lady Penrhyn was a convict transport in the First Fleet. She departed Sydney Cove on 5 May 1788 and sailed north with the intention of purchasing furs in Kamchatka for resale in China. The poor condition of the ship and sickness among her crew compelled Lady Penrhyn to stop in Matavai Bay in July 1788, where the crew recovered, John Watts, who was acting as supercargo, had visited previously as a midshipman in Resolution on James Cooks third voyage. Bligh had served as sailing master of Resolution during Cooks third voyage, Bounty reached Tahiti on 26 October 1788, after ten months at sea. Bligh and his crew spent five months in Tahiti and they established a nursery at Point Venus, collecting and preparing 1015 breadfruit plants to be transported. Bligh allowed the crew to live ashore and care for the breadfruit plants. Bounty departed with her cargo on 4 April 1789. Part of the crew mutinied on 28 April 1789, Pandora, under Captain Edward Edwards, was sent from England to search for the Bounty and the mutineers
3.
William Hodges
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William Hodges RA was an English painter. Hodges was born on 28 October 1744 in London and he studied under William Shipley, and afterwards in the studio of Richard Wilson, where he met Thomas Jones. During his early career, he made a living by painting theatrical scenery, between 1772 and 1775 Hodges accompanied James Cook to the Pacific as the expeditions artist. Many of his sketches and wash paintings were adapted as engravings in the published edition of Cooks journals from the voyage. These paintings depicted a stronger light and shadow than had been usual in European landscape tradition, contemporary art critics complained that his use of light and colour contrasts gave his paintings a rough and unfinished appearance. Hodges also produced many valuable portrait sketches of Pacific islanders and scenes from the voyage involving members of the expedition, in 1778, under the patronage of Warren Hastings, Hodges travelled to India, one of the first British professional landscape painters to visit that country. He remained there for six years, staying in Lucknow with Claude Martin in 1783 and his painting of Futtypoor Sicri is in Sir John Soanes Museum. Later Hodges travelled across Europe, including a visit to St. Petersburg in Russia in 1790, in 1793 Hodges published an illustrated book about his travels in India. In late 1794 Hodges opened an exhibition of his own works in London that included two paintings called The Effects of Peace and The Effects of War. The Duke took offence at the nature of Hodges paintings and ordered the exhibition closed. Hodges retired to Devon and became involved with a bank, which failed during the crisis of March,1797. On 6 March of that year, he died from what was recorded as gout in the stomach. Hodges Knoll in Antarctica is named after William Hodges, European Vision and the South Pacific. Smith, William Hodges and English Plein-Air Painting, in Art History,6,2 I. C, stuebe, The Life and Works of William Hodges Beaglehole, J. C. The Life of Captain James Cook
4.
Tahiti
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Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, this overseas collectivity of the French Republic is sometimes referred to as a French overseas country. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous with surrounding coral reefs, the population is 183,645 inhabitants, making it the most populous island of French Polynesia and accounting for 68.5 percent of its total population. Tahiti is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia, the capital, Papeete, is located on the northwest coast with the only international airport in the region, Faaā International Airport, situated 5 km from the town centre. Tahiti was originally settled by Polynesians between 300 and 800 CE and they represent about 70 percent of the islands population with the rest made up of Europeans, Chinese and those of mixed heritage. The island was part of the Kingdom of Tahiti until its annexation by France in 1880, when it was proclaimed a colony of France, French is the only official language although the Tahitian language is widely spoken. Tahiti is the highest and largest island in French Polynesia lying close to Moorea island and it is located 4,400 kilometres south of Hawaii,7,900 km from Chile and 5,700 km from Australia. The island is 45 km across at its widest point and covers an area of 1,045 km2, the highest peak is Mont Orohena. Mount Roonui, or Mount Ronui in the southeast rises to 1,332 m, the island consists of two roughly round portions centred on volcanic mountains and connected by a short isthmus named after the small town of Taravao, situated there. The northwestern portion is known as Tahiti Nui, while the much smaller portion is known as Tahiti Iti or Taiarapū. Tahiti Nui is heavily populated along the coast, especially around the capital, the interior of Tahiti Nui is almost entirely uninhabited. Tahiti Iti has remained isolated, as its half is accessible only to those travelling by boat or on foot. The rest of the island is encircled by a road which cuts between the mountains and the sea. A scenic and winding road climbs past dairy farms and citrus groves with panoramic views. Tahitis landscape features lush rainforests and many rivers and waterfalls, including the Papenoo River on the side. November to April is the wet season, the wettest month of which is January with 13.2 in of rain in Papeetē, August is the driest with 1.9 inches. The average temperature ranges between 21 and 31 °C with little seasonal variation, the lowest and highest temperatures recorded in Papeete are 16 and 34 °C, respectively. The first Tahitians arrived from Southeast Asia in about 200 BCE and this hypothesis of an emigration from Southeast Asia is supported by a number of linguistic, biological and archaeological proofs. For example, the languages of Fiji and Polynesia all belong to the same Oceanic sub-group, Fijian-Polynesian, in 1769, for instance, James Cook mentions a great traditional ship in Tahiti that was 33 m long, and could be propelled by sail or paddles
5.
Kingdom of Great Britain
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The Kingdom of Great Britain, officially Great Britain, was a sovereign state in western Europe from 1 May 1707 to 31 December 1800. It did not include Ireland, which remained a separate realm, the unitary state was governed by a single parliament and government that was based in Westminster. Also after the accession of George I to the throne of Great Britain in 1714, the early years of the unified kingdom were marked by Jacobite risings which ended in defeat for the Stuart cause at Culloden in 1746. On 1 January 1801, the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were merged to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922, five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom, the name Britain descends from the Latin name for the island of Great Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, the land of the Britons via the Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The term Great Britain was first used officially in 1474, in the instrument drawing up the proposal for a marriage between Edward IV of Englands daughter Cecily and James III of Scotlands son James. The Treaty of Union and the subsequent Acts of Union state that England and Scotland were to be United into one Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain. However, both the Acts and the Treaty also refer numerous times to the United Kingdom and the longer form, other publications refer to the country as the United Kingdom after 1707 as well. The websites of the UK parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the BBC, additionally, the term United Kingdom was found in informal use during the 18th century to describe the state. The new state created in 1707 included the island of Great Britain, the kingdoms of England and Scotland, both in existence from the 9th century, were separate states until 1707. However, they had come into a union in 1603. Each of the three kingdoms maintained its own parliament and laws and this disposition changed dramatically when the Acts of Union 1707 came into force, with a single unified Crown of Great Britain and a single unified parliament. Ireland remained formally separate, with its own parliament, until the Acts of Union 1800, legislative power was vested in the Parliament of Great Britain, which replaced both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. In practice it was a continuation of the English parliament, sitting at the location in Westminster. Newly created peers in the Peerage of Great Britain were given the right to sit in the Lords. Despite the end of a parliament for Scotland, it retained its own laws. As a result of Poynings Law of 1495, the Parliament of Ireland was subordinate to the Parliament of England, the Act was repealed by the Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act 1782. The same year, the Irish constitution of 1782 produced a period of legislative freedom, the 18th century saw England, and after 1707 Great Britain, rise to become the worlds dominant colonial power, with France its main rival on the imperial stage
6.
Whitby
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Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Borough of Scarborough and English county of North Yorkshire. It is located within the boundaries of the North Riding of Yorkshire. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a maritime, mineral. Its East Cliff is home to the ruins of Whitby Abbey, where Cædmon, the fishing port developed during the Middle Ages, supporting important herring and whaling fleets, and was where Captain Cook learned seamanship. Tourism started in Whitby during the Georgian period and developed further on the arrival of the railway in 1839, Jet and alum were mined locally. Whitby Jet, which was mined by the Romans and Victorians, the earliest record of a permanent settlement is in 656, when as Streanœhealh it was the place where Oswy, the Christian king of Northumbria, founded the first abbey, under the abbess Hilda. The Synod of Whitby was held there in 664, in 867, the monastery was destroyed by Viking raiders. Another monastery was founded in 1078 and it was in this period that the town gained its current name, Whitby. The abbey ruin at the top of the East Cliff is the towns oldest and most prominent landmark, other significant features include the swing bridge, which crosses the River Esk and the harbour, which is sheltered by the grade II listed East and West piers. The towns maritime heritage is commemorated by statues of Captain Cook and William Scoresby, the town also has a strong literary tradition and has featured in literary works, television and cinema, most famously in Bram Stokers novel Dracula. As a result, tourism and some forms of fishing remain the mainstay of its economy and it is the closest port to a proposed wind farm development in the North Sea,47 miles from York and 22 miles from Middlesbrough. According to the 2011 UK census, the town had a population of 13,213, Whitby was called Streanæshalc, Streneshalc, Streoneshalch, Streoneshalh, and Streunes-Alae in Lindissi in records of the 7th and 8th centuries. Prestebi, meaning the habitation of priests in Old Norse, is an 11th century name and its name was recorded as Hwitebi and Witebi, meaning the white settlement in Old Norse, in the 12th century, Whitebi in the 13th century and Qwiteby in the 14th century. A monastery was founded at Streanœhealh in AD657 by King Oswiu or Oswy of Northumbria, as an act of thanksgiving, after defeating Penda, at its foundation, the abbey was an Anglo-Saxon double monastery for men and women. Its first abbess, the royal princess Hild, was venerated as a saint. The abbey became a centre of learning and here Cædmon the cowherd was miraculously transformed into a poet whose poetry is an example of Anglo-Saxon literature. The abbey became the royal nunnery of the kingdom of Deira. The Synod of Whitby, in 664, established the Roman date of Easter in Northumbria at the expense of the Celtic one, the monastery was destroyed between 867 and 870 in a series of raids by Vikings from Denmark under their leaders Ingwar and Ubba
7.
Collier (ship)
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A collier is a bulk cargo ship designed to carry coal, especially for naval use by coal-fired warships. Coaling at sea was critical to navies and speed of transfer was an important metric of naval efficiency. In 1883, forty tons an hour was considered fast and it would take twelve hours to restock half the bunkers of a typical ship. Sir Charles Palmer pioneered the construction of iron-hulled steam colliers at his Jarrow shipyard, the iron colliers had ballast tanks which meant water could simply be pumped in, greatly reducing the turnaround time as the sand no longer needed to be loaded and unloaded. Coal was also exported to Europe, and wooden colliers returned with such as roofing tiles in their holds. The first Palmer-built iron hulled steam collier was SS John Bowes of 1852, there had been an earlier iron hull screw propelled collier, the short-lived SS Bedlington of 1841 built in South Shields. A notable incident involving a collier occurred not long after the opening of the Victoria Tunnel in Newcastle, the hemp rope which controlled the speed of wagons descending the tunnel to the river from Spital Tongues Colliery snapped, and the wagons landed in the Tyne. The wagons were recovered at low tide, the rope was repaired, six months later, the rope snapped again, and the wagons landed in the hold of a waiting collier and sank it. After this, it was decided a wire rope would be a better option and this is probably the only recorded incident of a train having sunk a ship. Some had spouts used for unscreened or small coal, others known as drops had steep inclines at the end, down which a wagon would be lowered directly into the hold, some had both drops and spouts. The drops and spouts could be raised and lowered with the tide, later, elevators began to be introduced, such as those at Bates Staithes in Blyth, Northumberland and Harton Low Staithes in South Shields. The largely intact Dunston Staithes on the Tyne are an example of this type. In Scotland, a system was common where wagons would be placed on a cradle and lifted into the hold of the ship, the men who worked at the staithes were known as teemers and trimmers. The trimmers worked in the hold, spreading and levelling the coal with shovels and this was a dangerous job, as the holds could fill with firedamp given off by the coal, resulting in an explosion. More modern systems are designed to be able to distribute the coal without the need for men working in the holds of the ships. The wharf at Battersea Power Station is still extant, and the used for unloading the coal can be seen on the riverfront. These are fitted with buckets and in operation loaded a hopper. The modern equivalent can be seen at the Tyne Coal Terminal, USS Langley, the first aircraft carrier in the United States Navy, was a converted collier
8.
Sloop-of-war
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In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, thus, in the first half of the 18th century, most naval sloops were two-masted vessels, usually carrying a ketch or a snow rig. A ketch had main and mizzen masts but no foremast, while a snow had a foremast, the first three-masted sloops appeared during the 1740s, and from the mid-1750s most new sloops were built with a three-masted rig. The third sail afforded the sloop greater mobility and the ability to back sail, in the 1770s, the two-masted sloop re-appeared in a new guise as the brig sloop, the successor to the former snow sloops. Brig sloops had two masts, while ship sloops continued to have three, in the Napoleonic period, Britain built huge numbers of brig sloops of the Cruizer class and the Cherokee class. The brig rig was economical of manpower and, when armed with carronades, the carronades also used much less manpower than the long guns normally used to arm frigates. Consequently, the Cruizer class were used as cheaper and more economical substitutes for frigates. A carronade-armed brig, however, would be at the mercy of an armed with long guns. The other limitation of brig sloops as opposed to post ships and frigates was their relatively restricted stowage for water and provisions, however, their shallower draught made them excellent raiders against coastal shipping and shore installations. Bermuda sloops were found with gaff rig, mixtures of gaff and square rig and they were built with up to three masts. The single masted ships, with their sails, and the tremendous wind energy they harnessed, were demanding to sail. The longer decks of the vessels also had the advantage of allowing more guns to be carried. Originally a sloop-of-war was smaller than a frigate and was outside the rating system. A ship sloop was generally the equivalent of the corvette of the French Navy. The name corvette was also applied to British vessels. American usage, while similar to British terminology into the beginning of the 19th century, the Americans also occasionally used the French term corvette. In the Royal Navy, the sloop evolved into a vessel with a single gun deck. During the War of 1812 sloops of war in the service of the United States Navy performed well against their Royal Navy equivalents, the American ships had the advantage of being ship-rigged rather that brig-rigged, a distinction that increased their maneuverability
9.
Royal Navy
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The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century it was the worlds most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the world power during the 19th. Due to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, following World War I, the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the worlds largest. By the end of the war, however, the United States Navy had emerged as the worlds largest, during the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. The Royal Navy is part of Her Majestys Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the power in the 10th century. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Medieval fleets, in England as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into service in time of war. Englands naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilisation of fleets when war broke out was slow, early in the war French plans for an invasion of England failed when Edward III of England destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of Sluys in 1340. Major fighting was confined to French soil and Englands naval capabilities sufficed to transport armies and supplies safely to their continental destinations. Such raids halted finally only with the occupation of northern France by Henry V. Henry VII deserves a large share of credit in the establishment of a standing navy and he embarked on a program of building ships larger than heretofore. He also invested in dockyards, and commissioned the oldest surviving dry dock in 1495 at Portsmouth, a standing Navy Royal, with its own secretariat, dockyards and a permanent core of purpose-built warships, emerged during the reign of Henry VIII. Under Elizabeth I England became involved in a war with Spain, the new regimes introduction of Navigation Acts, providing that all merchant shipping to and from England or her colonies should be carried out by English ships, led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War, the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organisation and the fighting was inconclusive
10.
James Cook
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Captain James Cook FRS RN was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755 and he saw action in the Seven Years War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This helped bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society, in three voyages Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail, as he progressed on his voyages of discovery he surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage, Cook was attacked and killed while attempting to kidnap the native chief of Hawaii during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779. He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge which was to influence his successors well into the 20th century, and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him. James Cook was born on 7 November 1728 in the village of Marton in Yorkshire and baptised on 14 November in the church of St Cuthbert. He was the second of eight children of James Cook, a Scottish farm labourer from Ednam in Roxburghshire, in 1736, his family moved to Airey Holme farm at Great Ayton, where his fathers employer, Thomas Skottowe, paid for him to attend the local school. In 1741, after five years schooling, he work for his father. For leisure, he would climb a hill, Roseberry Topping, enjoying the opportunity for solitude. Cooks Cottage, his parents last home, which he is likely to have visited, is now in Melbourne, having moved from England and reassembled, brick by brick. In 1745, when he was 16, Cook moved 20 miles to the village of Staithes. Historians have speculated that this is where Cook first felt the lure of the sea while gazing out of the shop window. After 18 months, not proving suitable for work, Cook travelled to the nearby port town of Whitby to be introduced to friends of Sandersons, John. The Walkers, who were Quakers, were prominent local ship-owners in the coal trade and their house is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum. Cook was taken on as a merchant navy apprentice in their fleet of vessels. His first assignment was aboard the collier Freelove, and he spent several years on this and various other coasters, sailing between the Tyne and London. As part of his apprenticeship, Cook applied himself to the study of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, navigation and his three-year apprenticeship completed, Cook began working on trading ships in the Baltic Sea
11.
Second voyage of James Cook
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Alexander Dalrymple and others of the Royal Society still believed that this massive southern continent should exist. After a delay brought about by the botanist Joseph Banks unreasonable demands, on 17 January 1773, Resolution was the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle which she crossed twice more on the voyage. The third crossing, on 3 February 1774, was to be the most southerly penetration, Cook undertook a series of vast sweeps across the Pacific, finally proving there was no Terra Australis by sailing over most of its predicted locations. Cook proved the Terra Australis Incognita to be a myth and predicted that an Antarctic land would be found beyond the ice barrier, on this voyage the Larcum Kendall K1 chronometer was successfully employed by William Wales to calculate longitude. This discovery led Dalrymple to publish An Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean, in 1770–1771 which aroused widespread interest in his claim of the existence of an unknown continent. Cook commanded HMS Resolution on this voyage, while Tobias Furneaux commanded its companion ship and she was 111 feet long and 35 feet abeam. She was originally registered as HMS Drake, but fearing this would upset the Spanish, twelve light 6-pounder guns and twelve swivel guns were carried. At his own expense Cook had brass door-hinges installed in the great cabin, HMS Adventure began her career as the 340 ton North Sea collier Marquis of Rockingham, launched at Whitby in 1771. She was purchased by the Navy that year for £2,103 and named Rayleigh and she was 97 feet long,28 feet abeam and her draft was 13 feet and carried ten guns. Both were built at the Fishburn yard at Whitby and purchased from Captain William Hammond of Hull, Cook was asked to test the Larcum Kendall K1 chronometer on this voyage. The Board of Longitude had asked Kendall to copy and develop John Harrisons fourth model of a clock useful for navigation at sea, the first model finished by Kendall in 1769 was an accurate copy of H4, cost £450, and is known today as K1. Although constructed like a watch, the chronometer had a diameter of 13 cm, three other clocks, constructed by John Arnold were carried but did not withstand the rigors of the journey. As anti-scorbutics they took nearly 20,000 pounds of Sour Krout and 30 imperial gallons of Mermalade of Carrots, both ships carried livestock, including bullocks, sheep, goats, hogs and poultry. The crews had fishing gear and a water system was carried for distilling sea-water or purifying foul fresh-water. Various pieces of hardware and trinkets to be used for barter or as gifts for the natives were taken aboard. Furneaux, commander of Adventure, was an explorer, having served on Samuel Walliss circumnavigation in Dolphin in 1766–1768. He headed a crew of 81 which included Joseph Shank as first lieutenant, there were also twelve marines headed by Lieutenant James Scott, Furneauxs personal servant, James Tobias Swilley, and, as masters mate John Rowe who was a relation of Furneaux. The ships astronomer was William Bayly and this refit cost £10,080 12s 9d
12.
Third voyage of James Cook
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HMS Resolution, to be commanded by Cook, and HMS Discovery, commanded by Charles Clerke, were prepared for the voyage which started from Plymouth in 1776. The ships travelled to Cape Town by way of Tenerife then on to New Zealand, Omai was returned to his homeland and the ships sailed onwards, discovering the Hawaiian Archipelago, before reaching the Pacific coast of North America. The two charted the west coast of the continent and passed through the Bering Strait when they were stopped by ice from sailing either east or west, the vessels returned to the Pacific and called briefly at the Aleutians before retiring towards Hawaii for the winter. After a time during which Cook, and his crew were feted and he soon suffered damage to his ship and had to turn back. On his return, conflict arose which resulted in Cooks death, Cooks remains were taken away by the Hawaiians but some were returned to be buried at sea by his crew. The command of the expedition was assumed by Charles Clerke who tried in vain to find the passage before his own death, under the command of John Gore the crews returned to a subdued London in October 1780. Principally, the purpose of the voyage was an attempt to discover the famed Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific around the top of North America. Cooks orders from the Admiralty were driven by a 1745 Act which, initially the Admiralty had wanted Charles Clerke to lead the expedition, with Cook, who was in retirement following his exploits in the Pacific, acting as a consultant. However, Cook had researched Berings expeditions, and the Admiralty ultimately placed their faith in the veteran explorer to lead with Clerke accompanying him. The arrangement was to make a two pronged attack, Cook moving from the Bering Strait in the north Pacific with Richard Pickersgill in the frigate Lyon taking the Atlantic approach and they planned to rendezvous in the summer of 1778. He arrived in London in October 1774 and was introduced into society by the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks, ostensibly, the third voyage was planned to return Omai to Tahiti, this is what the general public believed. On his last voyage, Cook once again commanded HMS Resolution. Resolution began her career as the 462 ton North Sea collier Marquis of Granby, launched at Whitby in 1770 and she was 111 feet long and 35 feet abeam. She was originally registered as HMS Drake, after she returned to Britain in 1775 she had been paid off but was then recommissioned in February 1776 for Cooks third voyage. The vessel had on board a quantity of livestock sent by George III as gifts for the South Sea Islanders and these included sheep, cattle, goats and pigs as well as the more usual poultry. She was 27 feet abeam with a depth of 11 feet. Originally a brig, Cook had her changed to a full rigged ship, as his first lieutenant, Cook had John Gore, who had been round the world with him in the Endeavour and with Samuel Wallis in HMS Dolphin. James King was his officer and John Williamson third
13.
North Sea
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The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and it is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of around 570,000 square kilometres. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery, the North Sea was the centre of the Vikings rise. Subsequently, the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands, and the British each sought to dominate the North Sea and thus the access to the markets, as Germanys only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea continued to be strategically important through both World Wars. The coast of the North Sea presents a diversity of geological and geographical features, in the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south it consists primarily of sandy beaches and wide mudflats. Due to the population, heavy industrialization, and intense use of the sea and area surrounding it. In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean, in the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, and connects with the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres and a volume of 54,000 cubic kilometres. Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and archipelagos, including Shetland, Orkney, the North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the British Isles. A large part of the European drainage basin empties into the North Sea including water from the Baltic Sea, the largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Elbe and the Rhine – Meuse watershed. Around 185 million people live in the catchment area of the rivers discharging into the North Sea encompassing some highly industrialized areas, for the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf with a mean depth of 90 metres. The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to a north of Bergen. It is between 20 and 30 kilometres wide and has a depth of 725 metres. The Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris and this feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The Long Forties and the Broad Fourteens are large areas with uniform depth in fathoms. These great banks and others make the North Sea particularly hazardous to navigate, the Devils Hole lies 200 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. The feature is a series of trenches between 20 and 30 kilometres long,1 and 2 kilometres wide and up to 230 metres deep. Other areas which are less deep are Cleaver Bank, Fisher Bank, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the North Sea as follows, On the Southwest
14.
Deptford
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Deptford is an area of South-East London, England, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. From the mid-16th to the late 19th century, Deptford was home to Deptford Dockyard, the area declined as the Royal Navy moved out and commercial docks shut, the last dock, Convoys Wharf, closed in 2000. Historically a part of Kent, Deptford became a Metropolitan Borough in 1900 and this became part of Inner London in 1965, within the newly created county of Greater London. Deptford began life as a ford of the Ravensbourne along the route of the Celtic trackway which was paved by the Romans. The modern name is a corruption of deep ford, Deptford was part of the pilgrimage route from London to Canterbury used by the pilgrims in Chaucers Canterbury Tales, and is mentioned in the Prologue to the Reeves Tale. Trinity House, the organisation concerned with the safety of navigation around the British Isles, was formed in Deptford in 1514, with its first Master being Thomas Spert and it moved to Stepney in 1618. The name Trinity House derives from the church of Holy Trinity and St Clement, originally separated by market gardens and fields, the two areas merged over the years, with the docks becoming an important part of the Elizabethan exploration. Queen Elizabeth I visited the royal dockyard on 4 April 1581 to knight the adventurer Francis Drake, diarist John Evelyn lived in Deptford at Sayes Court from 1652. Evelyn inherited the house when he married the daughter of Sir Richard Browne in 1652, on his return to England at the Restoration, Evelyn laid out meticulously planned gardens in the French style, of hedges and parterres. In its grounds was a cottage at one time rented by master woodcarver Grinling Gibbons, after Evelyn had moved to Surrey in 1694, Russian Tsar Peter the Great studied shipbuilding for three months in 1698. He and some of his fellow Russians stayed at Sayes Court, Evelyn was angered at the antics of the Tsar, who got drunk with his friends and, using a wheelbarrow with Peter in it, rammed their way through a fine holly hedge. Sayes Court was demolished in 1728-9 and a built on its site. This massive facility included warehouses, a bakery, a cattleyard/abattoir and sugar stores, all that remains is the name of Sayes Court Park, accessed from Sayes Court Street off Evelyn Street, not far from Deptford High Street. The Pepys Estate, opened on 13 July 1966, is on the grounds of the Victualing Yard. At its peak, around 1907, over 234,000 animals were imported annually through the market, the yard was taken over by the War Office in 1914, and was an Army Supply Reserve Depot in the First and Second World Wars. The site lay unused until being purchased by Convoys in 1984, in the mid-1990s, although significant investment was made on the site, it became uneconomic to continue using it as a freight wharf. In 2008 Hutchison Whampoa bought the 16ha site from News International with plans for a £700m 3, the Grade II listed Olympia Warehouse will be refurbished as part of the redevelopment of the site. High unemployment caused some of the population to move away as the industries closed down in the late 1960s
15.
Azimuth compass
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Azimuth compasses were important in the period before development of the reliable chronometers needed to determine a vessels exact position from astronomical observations. The magnetic azimuth is the arc between the point on the horizon below the body and the direction of magnetic north. When the latitude and date are known, the bearing of the sun at sunrise or sunset relative to true north can be readily determined, if the sun is observed at some time between sunrise and sunset, its altitude must also be recorded to calculate the true azimuth. The true azimuth may be compared to the azimuth to find the magnetic declination. An azimuth compass is a magnetic compass where the circumference of the card is divided into 360 degrees and it has two sights, diametrically opposite each other, through which the sun, planet or star is viewed. The sun is observed when the suns center is about one solar diameter above the horizon. Typically the compass will have a stop in the side of the box and this fixes the compass card, from which the magnetic azimuth or amplitude can be read. The sights may consist of two vanes, one with a slit and the other with a wider slit bisected by a thread. The observer looks towards the sun, seen through a glass, lining up the thread. Another arrangement has a bar on one vane and a slit bisected by a thread on the other. The instrument is aligned with the sun when the shadow of the falls on the vertical bar. Yet another design has a glass on one vane that focuses the rays of the sun on the opposite vane. Meridional azimuth compasses included a universal equatorial sundial, by setting the date and latitude, the true north and the magnetic variation could be read from the instrument without the need for calculation. With the iron vessels introduced in the 19th century the azimuth compass would be mounted on a pedestal at a point where the readings would not be affected by magnetism of the vessel. However, calculating longitude was impossible until chronometers that could keep time accurately throughout a long voyage were developed, in 1688 King Philip III of Spain offered a large reward to anyone who could find a practical solution to determining longitude. A novel approach, apparently originating with the Jesuit missionary Christoforo Borri, was to create charts that mapped points of equal magnetic declination, with an accurate reading of the latitude and the magnetic declination the navigator could determine their longitude using the chart. A drawback to this approach is that magnetic variations change over time, in 1795 a British First Rate ship would have up to eight compasses, of which one was an improved steering compass. This azimuth compass may have been specialized for the purpose of measuring magnetic variation through taking readings from stars, an azimuthal compass was described in 1736, but the inventor was not named
16.
Evaporator (marine)
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An evaporator, distiller or distilling apparatus is a piece of ships equipment used to produce fresh drinking water from sea water by distillation. As fresh water is bulky, may spoil in storage, and is a supply for any long voyage. Although distillers are often associated with ships, their use pre-dates this. Cooks Pacific exploration ship HMS Resolution of 1771 carried a distiller, Distilling apparatus was only fitted to larger warships and some exploratory ships at this time, a warships large crew needed more water and they could ill afford the space to carry enough. Cargo ships, and their crews, merely carried their supplies with them. With the development of the steam engine, their boilers also required a continual supply of feedwater. Early boilers used seawater directly, but this gave problems with the build-up of brine, for efficiency, as well as conserving feedwater, marine engines have usually been condensing engines. Despite this, a warship could still require up to 100 tons of fresh water makeup to the feedwater system. Attention was also paid to de-aereating feedwater, to further reduce boiler corrosion, the distillation system for boiler feedwater at this time was usually termed an evaporator, partly to distinguish it from a separate system or distiller used for drinking water. In time, the two functions became combined and the two terms were applied to the components of the system. The first water supply by distillation of boiler steam appeared on early paddle steamers and used an iron box in the paddle boxes. A steam supply direct from the boiler, avoiding the engine, with the development of steam heating jackets around the cylinders of engines such as the trunk engine, the exhaust from this source, again unlubricated, could be condensed. The first distilling plants that boiled a separate water supply from that of the main boiler and these were not directly heated by a flame, but had a primary steam circuit using main boiler steam through coils within a steam drum or evaporator. The distillate from this vessel then passed to an adjacent vessel, as these evaporators used a clean seawater supply directly, rather than contaminated water from the boiler circuit, they could be used to supply both feedwater and drinking water. These double distillers appeared around 1884, for security against failure, ships except the smallest were fitted with two sets. Evaporators consume a great deal of steam, and thus fuel and their efficiency is improved by working them at a partial vacuum, supplied by the main engine condensers. On modern diesel-powered ships, this vacuum can instead be produced by an ejector, working under vacuum also reduces the temperature required to boil seawater and thus permits evaporators to be used with lower-temperature waste heat from the diesel cooling system. One of the greatest operational problems with an evaporator is the build-up of scale and its design is tailored to reduce this, and to make its cleaning as effective as possible
17.
Swivel gun
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The term swivel gun usually refers to a small cannon, mounted on a swiveling stand or fork which allows a very wide arc of movement. Swivel guns should not be confused with pivot guns, which were far larger weapons mounted on a pivot, or screw guns. An older term for the type is peterero, the name was taken from the Spanish name for the gun, pedrero, a combination of the word piedra and the suffic -ero, because stone was the first type of ammunition fired. Swivel guns are among the smallest types of cannon, typically measuring less than 1 m in length and with a diameter of up to 3.5 cm. They can fire a variety of ammunition but were used to fire grapeshot. They were aimed through the use of a handle, somewhat similar in shape to a baseball bat. Most swivel guns were muzzleloaders, but there were some breech-loading swivel guns as early as the 16th century, making them among the first such examples of this type of weapon. Breech-loading swivel guns had a breech shaped like a beer mug, the gunpowder and projectiles were loaded into the breech before it was inserted into the gun. If a number of breeches were prepared beforehand, the gunner could maintain a rate of fire for a brief period simply by swapping out the used breech. Swivel guns were used aboard sailing ships, serving as short-range anti-personnel ordnance. They were not ship-sinking weapons, due to their caliber and short range. They were especially useful against deck-to-deck boarders, against approaching longboats bearing boarding parties, due to their relatively small size, swivel guns were highly portable and could be moved around the deck of a ship quite easily. Swivel guns also had peaceful uses, Swivel guns were extensively used by the kingdoms and empires of Asia, particularly China and Korea. The first Chinese swivel guns were cast as early as 1520 after being introduced from Europe, during the Japanese invasions of Korea, Korean naval forces used swivel guns and larger cannon to great effect in interdicting the invading Japanese forces. Swivel Guns and Swivel Gun Harpoons Lewis and Clarks swivel cannon Swivel Guns or Paterero
18.
Natural history
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Natural history is the research and study of organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. It encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it, with articles nowadays more often published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. For example, geobiology has a strong multi-disciplinary nature combining scientists, a person who studies natural history is known as a naturalist or natural historian. The English term natural history is a translation of the Latin historia naturalis and its meaning has narrowed progressively with time, while the meaning of the related term nature has widened. In antiquity, it covered essentially anything connected with nature or which used materials drawn from nature. For example, Pliny the Elders encyclopedia of this title, published circa 77 to 79 AD, covers astronomy, geography, man and his technology, medicine and superstition as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two divisions, the humanities and divinity, with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry, natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus aspiration to improve the economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits, the astronomer, William Herschel was also a natural historian. Instead of working with plants or minerals he worked with the stars and he spent his time building telescopes to see the stars and the rest of the time watching the stars. In the beginning, he believed there to be a known as a nebulae. Herschel can be considered a natural historian because he observed the natural world, in the process he made charts of all the stars and kept records of all that he saw. S. Wilcove and T. Eisner, The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior and it encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do. Some definitions go further, focusing on observation of organisms in their environment. Bartholomew, A student of history, or a naturalist, studies the world by observing plants. A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a component, as seen in a recent definition by H. W. Greene
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Joseph Banks
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Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was a British naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. Banks made his name on the 1766 natural history expedition to Newfoundland and he took part in Captain James Cooks first great voyage, visiting Brazil, Tahiti, and, after 6 months in New Zealand, Australia, returning to immediate fame. He held the position of President of the Royal Society for over 41 years and he advised King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and by sending botanists around the world to collect plants, he made Kew the worlds leading botanical gardens. He is credited with introducing the eucalyptus, acacia, and the named after him, Banksia. Approximately 80 species of plants bear his name and he was the leading founder of the African Association and a member of the Society of Dilettanti which helped to establish the Royal Academy. Banks was born on Argyle Street in London to William Banks, a wealthy Lincolnshire country squire and member of the House of Commons and he had a younger sister, Sarah Sophia Banks, born in 1744. Banks was educated at Harrow School from the age of 9 and at Eton College from 1756, as a boy, Banks enjoyed exploring the Lincolnshire countryside and developed a keen interest in nature, history and botany. When he was 17, he was inoculated with smallpox, but he became ill, in late 1760, he was enrolled as a gentleman-commoner at the University of Oxford. At Oxford, he matriculated at Christ Church, where his studies were focused on natural history rather than the classical curriculum. Determined to receive instruction, he paid the Cambridge botanist Israel Lyons to deliver a series of lectures at Oxford in 1764. Banks left Oxford for Chelsea in December 1763 and he continued to attend the university until 1764, but left that year without taking a degree. He began to make friends among the men of his day and to correspond with Carl Linnaeus. As Bankss influence increased, he became an adviser to King George III and urged the monarch to support voyages of discovery to new lands and he became a Freemason sometime before 1769. He made his name by publishing the first Linnean descriptions of the plants and animals of Newfoundland and his diary, describing his expedition to Newfoundland, was rediscovered recently in the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia. Banks also documented 34 species of birds, including the great auk, on 7 May, he noted a large number of penguins swimming around the ship on the Grand Banks, and a specimen he collected in Chateau Bay, Labrador, was later identified as the great auk. Banks was appointed to a joint Royal Navy/Royal Society scientific expedition to the south Pacific Ocean on HMS Endeavour and this was the first of James Cooks voyages of discovery in that region. Banks funded seven others to him, the Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander. The voyage went to Brazil, where Banks made the first scientific description of a now common garden plant, bougainvillea, and to other parts of South America
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Johann Reinhold Forster
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Johann Reinhold Forster was a Reformed pastor and naturalist of partially Scottish descent who made contributions to the early ornithology of Europe and North America. He is best known as the naturalist on James Cooks second Pacific voyage and they also laid the framework for general concern about the impact that alteration of the physical environment for European economic expansion would have on exotic societies. Forster himself was born in the city of Tczew in Poland and he studied languages and natural history at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin, theology at the University of Halle, afterwards serving as a Protestant pastor in Mokry Dwór Pomeranian Voivodship. He married his cousin Elisabeth Nikolai and they had several children including a son, Georg Forster. In 1765 he accepted an offer made to him by the Russian government to inspect and report upon the new colonies founded on the banks of the Volga and he spent three years teaching at the Dissenting Warrington Academy, succeeding Joseph Priestley. Compelled by his violent temper to resign this appointment, Forster then moved with his son to London, in 1771, he published A Catalogue of the Animals of North America, which listed the regions mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, insects, arachnids, and crustaceans. When Joseph Banks withdrew at the last moment as naturalist on Cooks second voyage, Forster, in July 1772 they set sail on the Resolution, returning to England in July 1775. During a stop in Cape Town, Forster engaged Anders Sparrman to act as his assistant, both the Forsters kept detailed diaries of everything they saw on the voyage, and made extensive collections of both natural history specimens and artifacts. On his return Forster published Observations Made during a Voyage round the World, however the income from the book was insufficient to clear his debts, and the bulk of Georgs drawings from the voyage had to be sold to Joseph Banks. During the next few years Forster undertook a variety of writing work and his Descriptiones animalium, completed within a month of returning to England with Cook, was eventually edited by Hinrich Lichtenstein and published in 1844. Forsters Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society on zoology, ornithology, and ichthyology established him as one of the earliest authorities on North American zoology. Gaedike, R. Groll, E. K. & Taeger, A.2012, Bibliography of the literature from the beginning until 1863
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Georg Forster
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Johann Georg Adam Forster was a naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist, and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father, Johann Reinhold Forster, on scientific expeditions. His report of that journey, A Voyage Round the World, contributed significantly to the ethnology of the people of Polynesia and remains a respected work. As a result of the report, Forster was admitted to the Royal Society at the age of twenty-two. After returning to continental Europe, Forster turned toward academia and he traveled to Paris to seek out a discussion with the American revolutionary Benjamin Franklin in 1777. He taught natural history at the Collegium Carolinum in the Ottoneum, Kassel, in 1788, he became head librarian at the University of Mainz. Forster was a figure of the Enlightenment in Germany, and corresponded with most of its adherents. His ideas and personality influenced Alexander von Humboldt, one of the scientists of the 19th century. During July 1793 and while he was in Paris as a delegate of the young Mainz Republic, Prussian and Austrian coalition forces regained control of the city, unable to return to Germany and separated from his friends and family, he died in Paris of illness in early 1794. Georg Forster was born in the village of Nassenhuben near Danzig, in the province of Royal Prussia. He was the oldest of seven surviving children of Johann Reinhold Forster and his father was a naturalist, scientist and Reformed pastor. In 1765, the Russian empress Catherine II commissioned the pastor to travel through Russia on a research journey, Georg, then ten years old, joined him. On the journey, which reached the Kalmyk steppe on the lower Volga, they discovered several new species, and he also became fluent in Russian. The report of the journey, which included criticism of the governor of Saratov, was not well received at court. The Forsters claimed they had not received payment for their work and had to move house. They chose to settle in England in 1766, the father took up teaching at the Dissenters Academy in Warrington and also translation work. At the age of thirteen, the young Forster published his first book, an English translation of Lomonosovs history of Russia. In 1772, Forsters father became a member of the Royal Society and this and the withdrawal of Joseph Banks resulted in his invitation by the British admiralty to join James Cooks second expedition to the Pacific
22.
Sheerness
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Sheerness /ʃɪərˈnɛs/ is a town located beside the mouth of the River Medway on the north-west corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 12,000 it is the largest town on the island, Sheerness began as a fort built in the 16th century to protect the River Medway from naval invasion. In 1665, plans were first laid by the Navy Board for Sheerness Dockyard, the site was favoured by Samuel Pepys, then Clerk of the Acts of the navy, for shipbuilding over Chatham. Beginning with the construction of a pier and a promenade in the 19th century, industry retains its important place in the town and the Port of Sheerness is one of the United Kingdoms leading car and fresh produce importers. The town is the site of one of the UKs first co-operative societies, the first structure in what is now Sheerness was a fort built by order of Henry VIII to prevent enemy ships from entering the River Medway and attacking the naval dockyard at Chatham. In 1666 work began to replace it with a stronger fort, however, before its completion, this second fort was destroyed during the 1667 Dutch raid on the Medway. The Secretary of the Admiralty, Samuel Pepys, subsequently ordered the construction of Sheerness Dockyard as an extension to that at Chatham, by 1801 the population of the Minster-in-Sheppey parish, which included both Sheerness and the neighbouring town of Minster, reached 5,561. In 1816, one of the UKs first co-operative societies was started in Sheerness, chiefly to serve the dockyard workers, the Sheerness Economical Society began as a co-operative bakery but expanded to produce and sell a range of goods. By the middle of the 20th century, the society had spread across the Isle of Sheppey and had renamed the Sheerness. In 1863, mains water was installed in the town, towards the end of the 19th century, Sheerness achieved official town status and formed its own civil parish, separate from Minster-in-Sheppey. The 1901 Census recorded the Sheerness parish as having 18,179 residents and 2,999 houses, the towns low rainfall and ample sunshine made it popular as a seaside resort, with tourists arriving by steamboat and train. The Sheppey Light Railway opened in 1901, connecting the new Sheerness East station with the rest of the island, however, by 1950, lack of demand led to the railways closure. The Sheerness and District Tramways, which opened in 1903, only lasted until 1917, in 1944 the United States cargo ship SS Richard Montgomery ran aground and sank 1 mile off the coast of Sheerness, with large quantities of explosives on board. Due to the inherent danger and projected expense, the ship and its cargo have never been salvaged, if the wreck were to explode, a 2004 report published in New Scientist warned that an explosion could occur if sea water penetrated the bombs. In March 1960 the Royal Navy ceased operating the Sheerness dockyard, the dockyard closure led to thousands of job losses, and most of the nearby houses and shops in the Bluetown area were eventually abandoned and demolished. By the 1961 census, the population of Sheerness had fallen to 13,691, the dockyard closure also led to the decline of the Sheerness and District Cooperative Society, as many of its members were dockyard workers. At the time, the society was the main retailer. In 2003, the Beachfields Park project was organised to publicise Beachfields heritage, students of Cheyne Middle School and Minster College, with assistance from local organisations, researched the funfair, bandstands, Prisoner of the War hut, boating lake and bowling green
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HMS Endeavour
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The navy renamed and commissioned her as His Majestys Bark the Endeavour. She departed Plymouth in August 1768, rounded Cape Horn, and she then set sail into the largely uncharted ocean to the south, stopping at the Pacific islands of Huahine, Bora Bora, and Raiatea to allow Cook to claim them for Great Britain. In September 1769, she anchored off New Zealand, the first European vessel to reach the islands since Abel Tasmans Heemskerck 127 years earlier. In April 1770, Endeavour became the first ship to reach the east coast of Australia, Endeavour then sailed north along the Australian coast. She narrowly avoided disaster after running aground on the Great Barrier Reef and he then beached her on the mainland for seven weeks to permit rudimentary repairs to her hull. On 10 October 1770, she limped into port in Batavia in the Dutch East Indies for more substantial repairs, her crew sworn to secrecy about the lands they had visited. She resumed her journey on 26 December, rounded the Cape of Good Hope on 13 March 1771. Largely forgotten after her voyage, Endeavour spent the next three years sailing to and from the Falkland Islands. As of 2016 her wreck had not been located but was thought to be one of a cluster of five in Newport Harbor. Relics, including six of her cannon and an anchor, are displayed at maritime museums worldwide, a replica of Endeavour was launched in 1994 and is berthed alongside the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney Harbour. The US space shuttle Endeavour is named after the ship and she is depicted on the New Zealand fifty-cent coin and she was ship-rigged and sturdily built with a broad, flat bow, a square stern, and a long box-like body with a deep hold. A flat-bottomed design made her well-suited to sailing in waters and allowed her to be beached for loading and unloading of cargo. Her hull, internal floors, and futtocks were built from white oak, her keel and stern post from elm. Plans of the ship also show a double keelson to lock the keel, floors, some doubt exists about the height of her standing masts, as surviving diagrams of Endeavour depict the body of the vessel only, and not the mast plan. If correct, this would produce an oddly truncated mast a full 9 feet shorter than the standards of the day,1794 at the top of this page. The replica standing mizzen is built to this shorter measurement and stepped in the hold on the keelson, on 16 February 1768, the Royal Society petitioned King George III to finance a scientific expedition to the Pacific to study and observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the sun. The Royal Society suggested command be given to Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple, whose acceptance was conditional on a brevet commission as a captain in the Royal Navy. However, First Lord of the Admiralty Edward Hawke refused, going so far as to say he would cut off his right hand than give command of a navy vessel to someone not educated as a seaman
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HMS Adventure (1771)
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HMS Adventure was a barque that the Royal Navy purchased in 1771. She had been the merchant vessel Marquis of Rockingham, launched in 1770 at Whitby, in naval service she sailed with Resolution on James Cooks second expedition to the Pacific in 1772–1775. She was the first ship to circumnavigate the globe from west to east, after her return she served as a store ship until 1779. The navy sold her in 1783 and she resumed a civilian career and she was lost in May 1811. She began her career as the North Sea collier Marquis of Rockingham and he arranged for the Navy to purchase two ships, the second and smaller of which was Marquis of Rockingham. The Navy purchased her in 1771 and first named her Raleigh or Rayleigh, the Navy commissioned her under Joseph Shank. Cook was given the command of Resolution, with Commander Tobias Furneaux accompanying him in Adventure, Furneaux was an experienced explorer, having served on Samuel Walliss circumnavigation in Dolphin in 1766–1768. Resolution and Adventure left Plymouth on 13 July 1772 and on 17 January 1773 were the first European ships to cross the Antarctic Circle. On 8 February 1773 the two became separated in a fog and Furneaux directed Adventure towards the prearranged meeting point of Queen Charlotte Sound. On the way to the rendezvous, Adventure surveyed the southern and eastern coasts of Tasmania, Furneaux made the earliest British chart of this shore, but as he did not enter Bass Strait he assumed Tasmania to be part of Australia. Most of his names here survive, Cook, visiting this shore-line on his voyage, confirmed Furneauxs account and delineation of it. Adventure arrived at Queen Charlotte Sound on 7 May 1773 and Resolution followed on 17 May, from June to October the two ships explored the southern Pacific, reaching Tahiti on 15 August, where Omai of Raiatea embarked on Adventure. After calling at Tonga in the Friendly Islands the ships returned to New Zealand but were separated by a storm on 22 October and this time the rendezvous at Queen Charlotte Sound was missed — Resolution departed on 26 November, four days before Adventure arrived. Cook had left a message buried in the setting out his plan to explore the South Pacific. Furneaux decided to home and buried a reply to that effect. Before he could leave, a fight out between Adventures crew and the local Māori people, in which ten crewmen and two Māoris were killed. This was reportedly prompted by a breach of tapu by a sailor. Lieutenant John Hallum recommissioned Adventure in March 1775 and he sailed for North America on 26 June 1775
25.
Plymouth
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Plymouths early history extends to the Bronze Age, when a first settlement emerged at Mount Batten. This settlement continued as a trading post for the Roman Empire, until it was surpassed by the prosperous village of Sutton founded in the ninth century. In 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers departed Plymouth for the New World, during the English Civil War the town was held by the Parliamentarians and was besieged between 1642 and 1646. The combined town took the name of Plymouth which, in 1928, the citys naval importance later led to its targeting and partial destruction during World War II, an act known as the Plymouth Blitz. After the war the city centre was rebuilt and subsequent expansion led to the incorporation of Plympton. The city is home to 262,700 people, making it the 30th most populous area in the United Kingdom. It is governed locally by Plymouth City Council and is represented nationally by three MPs, Plymouths economy remains strongly influenced by shipbuilding and seafaring including ferry links to Brittany and Spain, but has tended toward a service-based economy since the 1990s. It has the largest operational base in Western Europe – HMNB Devonport and is home to Plymouth University. An unidentified settlement named TAMARI OSTIA is listed in Ptolemys Geographia and is presumed to be located in the area of the modern city, at the time this village was called Sutton, meaning south town in Old English. The name Plym Mouth, meaning mouth of the River Plym was first mentioned in a Pipe Roll of 1211, the name Plymouth first officially replaced Sutton in a charter of King Henry VI in 1440. See Plympton for the derivation of the name Plym, during the Hundred Years War a French attack burned a manor house and took some prisoners, but failed to get into the town. In 1403 the town was burned by Breton raiders, on 12 November,1439, the English Parliament made Plymouth the first town incorporated. The castle served to protect Sutton Pool, which is where the fleet was based in Plymouth prior to the establishment of Plymouth Dockyard. In 1512 an Act of Parliament was passed for further fortifying Plymouth, defences on St Nicholas Island also date from this time, and a string of six artillery blockhouses were built, including one on Fishers Nose at the south-eastern corner of the Hoe. This location was further strengthened by the building of a fort in 1596, during the 16th century locally produced wool was the major export commodity. According to legend, Drake insisted on completing his game of bowls on the Hoe before engaging the Spanish Armada in 1588. In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for the New World from Plymouth, during the English Civil War Plymouth sided with the Parliamentarians and was besieged for almost four years by the Royalists. The last major attack by the Royalist was by Sir Richard Grenville leading thousands of soldiers towards Plymouth, the civil war ended as a Parliamentary win, but monarchy was restored by King Charles II in 1660, who imprisoned many of the Parliamentary heroes on Drakes Island
26.
Funchal
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Funchal is the largest city, the municipal seat and the capital of Portugals Autonomous Region of Madeira. The city has a population of 111,892, making it the 6th largest city in Portugal, because of its high cultural and historical value, Funchal is one of Portugals main tourist attractions. It is also popular as a destination for New Years Eve, the name is from the Portuguese word funcho and the suffix -al, to denote a plantation of fennel. The name Funchal, was applied by the first settlers landed on its shores due to the abundance of wild fennel where, as tradition goes. Owing to its location, the site became an important maritime port. Its coastal position, the most productive on the island, quickly permitted Funchal to develop a core and surpass the populations of other settlements. In the early 15th century, Álvaro Fernandes was the commander of Funchal, as part of its administrative role, the settlement received its primary lighthouse between 1452 and 1454, when it was elevated to the status of vila and municipal seat. Funchal became an important transfer point for European commercial interests, many sailors, by the end of the century, fronting the Order of Christ, D. In 1508, it was elevated to the status of city by King Manuel I of Portugal, the island, and Funchal specifically, were vulnerable to privateer and pirate attacks. When the news was relayed to the settlements on Madeira and the villas of Machico, in Funchal, the governor, Francisco de Sales Gonçalves Zarco da Câmara, did not take any action that could be construed as hostile. At the bridge the privateers encountered a force from the fort, with a few small-caliber pieces. At the road near Carreira, the attackers were confronted by a group of Franciscan monks. Funchals fortifications were assaulted by land, where its defense was thin. The city suffered a violent sack that lasted fifteen days, after which little remained, the following year, the military architect Mateus Fernandes III was sent to Funchal in order to completely modify the defensive system of the city. Evidence of the produced by this architect was published in the Mapa de Mateus Fernandes. The document identifies the major defenses of the city, which included a fortification in the area around the dyke in Pena. During the 16th century, Funchal was an important stop-over for caravels travelling between the Indies and the New World, the wine culture appeared during early settlement, through the incentives from Henry the Navigator. Later, in Shakespeares Henry IV he has Poins censure Falstaff for having sold his soul to the devil for a cup of Madeira wine, in the 17th century, commercial treaties with England brought increased investments to a business that was still insular
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Madeira
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Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago situated in the north Atlantic Ocean, southwest of Portugal. Its total population was estimated in 2011 at 267,785, the capital of Madeira is Funchal, located on the main islands south coast. The archipelago is just under 400 kilometres north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, since 1976, the archipelago has been one of the two Autonomous regions of Portugal. It includes the islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, and the Desertas, the region has political and administrative autonomy through the Administrative Political Statue of the Autonomous Region of Madeira provided for in the Portuguese Constitution. Madeira was claimed by Portuguese sailors in the service of Prince Henry the Navigator in 1419, the archipelago is considered to be the first territorial discovery of the exploratory period of the Portuguese Age of Discovery, which extended from 1415 to 1542. Today, it is a popular resort, being visited every year by about one million tourists. The region is noted for its Madeira wine, gastronomy, historical and cultural value, its flora and fauna, landscapes which are classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and embroidery artisans. Its annual New Year celebrations feature the largest fireworks show in the world, Madeira is the second richest region of Portugal by GDP per capita, only surpassed by Lisbon. They are called the Isles of the Blessed, archeological evidence suggests that the islands may have been visited by the Vikings sometime between 900-1030. During the reign of King Edward III of England, lovers Robert Machim and they were driven off their course by a violent storm and their ship went aground along the coast of an island, that may have been Madeira. Later this legend was the basis of the naming of the city of Machico, knowledge of some Atlantic islands, such as Madeira, existed before their formal discovery and settlement, as the islands were shown on maps as early as 1339. The following year, an expedition, under the captaincy of Zarco, Vaz Teixeira. Subsequently, the new settlers observed a black cloud suspended to the southwest. Their investigation revealed it to be the island they called Madeira. The first Portuguese settlers began colonizing the islands around 1420 or 1425, grain production began to fall and the ensuing crisis forced Henry the Navigator to order other commercial crops to be planted so that the islands could be profitable. The planting of sugarcane, and later Sicilian sugar beet, allowed the introduction of the salt into Europe. These specialised plants, and their associated industrial technology, created one of the major revolutions on the islands, the expansion of sugar plantations in Madeira began in 1455, using advisers from Sicily and financed by Genoese capital. The accessibility of Madeira attracted Genoese and Flemish traders, who were keen to bypass Venetian monopolies, by 1480 Antwerp had some seventy ships engaged in the Madeira sugar trade, with the refining and distribution concentrated in Antwerp
28.
Cape Verde
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Located 570 kilometres off the coast of West Africa, the islands cover a combined area of slightly over 4,000 square kilometres. The Cape Verde archipelago was uninhabited until the 15th century, when Portuguese explorers discovered and colonized the islands, ideally located for the Atlantic slave trade, the islands grew prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, attracting merchants, privateers, and pirates. The end of slavery in the 19th century led to economic decline, Cape Verde gradually recovered as an important commercial center and stopover for shipping routes. Incorporated as a department of Portugal in 1951, the islands continued to agitate for independence. Since the early 1990s, Cape Verde has been a representative democracy. Lacking natural resources, its economy is mostly service-oriented, with a growing focus on tourism. Its population of around 512,000 is mostly of mixed European and sub-Saharan African heritage, a sizeable diaspora community exists across the world, slightly outnumbering inhabitants on the islands. Historically, the name Cape Verde has been used in English for the archipelago and, since independence in 1975, for the country. In 2013, the Cape Verdean government determined that the Portuguese designation Cabo Verde would henceforth be used for official purposes, such as at the United Nations, Cape Verde is a member of the African Union. The name of the stems from the nearby Cap-Vert, on the Senegalese coast. In 1444 Portuguese explorers had named that landmark as Cabo Verde, on 24 October 2013, the countrys delegation announced at the United Nations that the official name should no longer be translated into other languages. Instead of Cape Verde, the designation Republic of Cabo Verde is to be used, before the arrival of Europeans, the Cape Verde Islands were uninhabited. The islands of the Cape Verde archipelago were discovered by Genoese and Portuguese navigators around 1456, according to Portuguese official records, the first discoveries were made by Genoa-born António de Noli, who was afterwards appointed governor of Cape Verde by Portuguese King Afonso V. Other navigators mentioned as contributing to discoveries in the Cape Verde archipelago are Diogo Gomes, Diogo Dias, Diogo Afonso, in 1462, Portuguese settlers arrived at Santiago and founded a settlement they called Ribeira Grande. Ribeira Grande was the first permanent European settlement in the tropics, in the 16th century, the archipelago prospered from the Atlantic slave trade. Pirates occasionally attacked the Portuguese settlements, sir Francis Drake, an English corsair privateering under a letter of marque granted by the English crown, twice sacked the capital Ribeira Grande in 1585 when it was a part of the Iberian Union. After a French attack in 1712, the town declined in relative to nearby Praia. Decline in the trade in the 19th century resulted in an economic crisis
29.
Cape of Good Hope
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The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa. In fact, the southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas, when following the western side of the African coastline from the equator, however, the Cape of Good Hope marks the point where a ship begins to travel more eastward than southward. Thus, the first modern rounding of the cape in 1488 by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was a milestone in the attempts by the Portuguese to establish trade relations with the Far East. Dias called the cape Cabo das Tormentas, which was the name of the Cape of Good Hope. As one of the capes of the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a waypoint on the Cape Route and the route followed by clipper ships to the Far East and Australia. The term Cape of Good Hope is also used in three ways, It is a section of the Table Mountain National Park, within which the cape of the same name, as well as Cape Point. Prior to its incorporation into the park, this section constituted the Cape Point Nature Reserve. It was the name of the early Cape Colony established by the Dutch in 1652, just before the Union of South Africa was formed, the term referred to the entire region that in 1910 was to become the Cape of Good Hope Province. When Eudoxus was returning from his voyage to India the wind forced him south of the Gulf of Aden. Somewhere along the coast of East Africa, he found the remains of the ship, due to its appearance and the story told by the natives, Eudoxus concluded that the ship was from Gades and had sailed anti-clockwise around Africa, passing the Cape and entering the Indian Ocean. This inspired him to repeat the voyage and attempt a circumnavigation of the continent, organising the expedition on his own account he set sail from Gades and began to work down the African coast. The difficulties were too great, however, and he was obliged to return to Europe, after this failure he again set out to circumnavigate Africa. Although some, such as Pliny, claimed that Eudoxus did achieve his goal, in the 1450 Fra Mauro map, the Indian Ocean is depicted as connected to the Atlantic. It sailed for 40 days in a south-westerly direction without ever finding anything other than wind and water. According to these people themselves, the ship went some 2,000 miles ahead until - once favourable conditions came to an end - it turned round and sailed back to Cape Diab in 70 days. The ships called junks that navigate these seas carry four masts or more, some of which can be raised or lowered, and have 40 to 60 cabins for the merchants and only one tiller. They can navigate without a compass, because they have an astrologer, thus one can believe and confirm what is said by both these and those, and that they had therefore sailed 4,000 miles
30.
Marine chronometer
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A marine chronometer is a timepiece that is precise and accurate enough to be used as a portable time standard, it can therefore be used to determine longitude by means of celestial navigation. Timepieces made in Switzerland may display the word chronometer only if certified by the COSC, to determine a position on the Earths surface, it is necessary and sufficient to know the latitude, longitude, and altitude. Altitude considerations can, of course, be ignored for vessels operating at sea level, until the mid-1750s, accurate navigation at sea out of sight of land was an unsolved problem due to the difficulty in calculating longitude. Navigators could determine their latitude by measuring the angle at noon or, in the Northern Hemisphere. To find their longitude, however, they needed a standard that would work aboard a ship. Observation of regular celestial motions, such as Galileos method based on observing Jupiters natural satellites, was not possible at sea due to the ships motion. The lunar distances method, initially proposed by Johannes Werner in 1514, was developed in parallel with the marine chronometer, the Dutch scientist Gemma Frisius was the first to propose the use of a chronometer to determine longitude in 1530. The purpose of a chronometer is to measure accurately the time of a fixed location. This is particularly important for navigation, knowing GMT at local noon allows a navigator to use the time difference between the ships position and the Greenwich Meridian to determine the ships longitude. The creation of a timepiece which would work reliably at sea was difficult, christiaan Huygens, following his invention of the pendulum clock in 1656, made the first attempt at a marine chronometer in 1673 in France, under the sponsorship of Jean-Baptiste Colbert. He obtained a patent for his invention from Colbert, but his clock remained imprecise at sea, the first published use of the term was in 1684 in Arcanum Navarchicum, a theoretical work by Kiel professor Matthias Wasmuth. This was followed by a theoretical description of a chronometer in works published by English scientist William Derham in 1713. Attempts to construct a marine chronometer were begun by Jeremy Thacker in England in 1714. In 1714, the British government offered a prize for a method of determining longitude at sea. His first two sea timepieces H1 and H2 used this system, but he realised that they had a sensitivity to centrifugal force. However, H3s circular balances still proved too inaccurate and he abandoned the large machines. Harrison solved the problems with his much smaller H4 chronometer design in 1761. H4 looked much like a large five-inch diameter pocket watch, in 1761, Harrison submitted H4 for the £20,000 longitude prize
31.
Larcum Kendall
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Larcum Kendall was a British watchmaker. There is no relationship between his business and that of the Larcum Kendall watch brand based in Chiasso, Switzerland. Kendall was born on 21 September 1719 in Charlbury and his father was a mercer and linen draper named Moses Kendall, and his mother was Ann Larcum from Chepping Wycombe, they married on 18 June 1718. The cottage where they lived is thought to be on the site of Charlburys post office on Market Street, in 1735 Kendall was apprenticed to the London watchmaker John Jeffreys. He was living with his parents in St Clement Danes at the time, Jeffreys created a pocket watch for John Harrison, who later used ideas from pocket watches in his H4. Kendall set up his own business in 1742, working with Thomas Mudge to make watches, working for the watch and clock maker George Graham. In 1765 he was one of six selected by the Board of Longitude to witness the operation of John Harrisons H4. The first model finished by Kendall was a copy of John Harrisons H4, cost £450. It was engraved in 1769, and was presented to the Board of Longitude on 13 January 1770, the original H4, the first successful chronometer, had an astronomical price £400 in 1750, which was approximately 30% of the value of a ship. James Cook and William Wales tested the clock on Cooks second South Seas journey and were full of praise after initial skepticism, Kendalls watch has exceeded the expectations of its most zealous advocate, Cook reported in 1775 to the admiralty. Cook also described it in his log as our trusty friend the Watch and it was thus K1 which proved to a doubting scientific establishment that H4s success was no fluke. Three other clocks, constructed by John Arnold, had not withstood the loads of the same journey, although constructed like a watch, the chronometer had a diameter of 13 centimetres and weighed 1.45 kilograms. K1 was used again by Cook for his third voyage, in April 1779 off Kamkatcha K1 stopped. A seaman with watchmaking experience cleaned it and started it again, after its arrival in Britain in September 1780 it was returned to Kendall for repairs. K1 left England in May 1787 with the First Fleet voyaging to New South Wales in HMS Sirius, K1 was transferred to HMAT Supply in the Indian Ocean, and arrived at Botany Bay on 18 January 1788. After some months ashore with Astronomer Lieutenant William Dawes, K1 was returned to HMS Sirius, K1 went to sea with Admiral Sir John Jervis in 1793. He took it to the West Indies and the Mediterranean and it was on board HMS Victory at the Battle of Cape St Vincent and it was finally pensioned off to Greenwich in 1802. K1 was described by John Gilbert, Master of the Resolution on Cooks second voyage as The greatest piece of mechanism the world has ever seen, K1 is now kept in the Royal Observatory, Greenwich at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England
32.
John Arnold (watchmaker)
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John Arnold was an English watchmaker and inventor. John Arnold was the first to design a watch that was practical and accurate, and also brought the term Chronometer into use in its modern sense. His technical advances enabled the quantity production of Marine Chronometers for use on ships from around 1782. The basic design of these has remained, with a few modifications unchanged until the twentieth century. With regard to his legacy, one can say that both he and Abraham-Louis Breguet largely invented the mechanical watch. Certainly one of his most important inventions, the Overcoil balance spring is still to be found in most mechanical wristwatches to this day and it was from around 1770 that Arnold developed the portable precision timekeeper, almost from the point where John Harrison ended his work in this field. But, compared to Harrisons complicated and expensive watch, Arnolds basic design was simple whilst consistently accurate, importantly, the relatively simple and conventional design of his movement facilitated its production in quantity at a reasonable price whilst also enabling easier maintenance and adjustment. He probably also worked with his uncle, a gunsmith, around 1755, when he was 19, he left England and worked as a watchmaker in the Hague, Holland, returning to England around 1757. In 1762, whilst at St Albans, Hertfordshire, he encountered William McGuire for whom he repaired a repeating watch. Arnold made a sufficient impression so that McGuire gave him a loan, enabling him to set up in business as a watchmaker at Devereux Court, Strand, London. In 1764, Arnold obtained permission to present to King George III an exceptionally small half quarter repeating watch cylinder escapement watch mounted in a ring. A similar repeating watch by Arnold has survived, it is of interest that the movement is Swiss in origin. The escapement of watch was later fitted with one of the first jewelled cylinders made of ruby. Arnold made another watch for the King around 1768, which was a gold and enamel pair cased watch with a movement that had every refinement, including minute repetition and centre seconds motion. In addition, Arnold fitted bi-metallic temperature compensation, and not only was every pivot hole jewelled, Arnold designated this watch Number 1, as he did with all watches he made that he regarded as significant, these numbering twenty in all. Other early productions by Arnold from 1768 to 1770 display both originality and ingenuity, this includes a centre seconds watch wound up by depressing the pendant once a day, the movement of this watch was also fully jewelled with a temperature compensation device and a ruby stone cylinder escapement. In fact, it was a complex and technically very advanced piece of micro engineering. However, the challenge was taken up by Larcum Kendall, who spent two years making an identical copy that cost £450, a huge sum at the time
33.
Antarctic Circle
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The Antarctic Circle is the most southerly of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. The region south of this circle is known as the Antarctic, the position of the Antarctic Circle is not fixed, as of 9 April 2017, it runs 66°33′46. 6″ south of the Equator. Its latitude depends on the Earths axial tilt, which fluctuates within a margin of 2° over a 40, 000-year period, consequently, the Antarctic Circle is currently drifting southwards at a speed of about 15 m per year. Directly on the Antarctic Circle these events occur, in principle, exactly once per year, at the December and June solstices, respectively. That is true at sea level, those limits increase with elevation above sea level, in previous centuries some semi-permanent whaling stations were established on the continent, and some whalers would live there for a year or more. At least three children have been born in Antarctica, albeit in stations north of the Antarctic Circle, the Antarctic Circle is roughly 17,662 kilometres long. The area south of the Circle is about 20,000,000 km2, the continent of Antarctica covers much of the area within the Antarctic Circle
34.
Alexander Dalrymple
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Alexander Dalrymple FRS was a Scottish geographer and the first Hydrographer of the British Admiralty. He was the proponent of the theory that there existed a vast undiscovered continent in the South Pacific. He produced thousands of nautical charts, mapping a remarkable number of seas and oceans for the first time, and contributing significantly to the safety of shipping. Dalrymple was born at Newhailes, near Edinburgh, the eleventh of fifteen children of Sir James Dalrymple and his wife, Lady Christian Hamilton and he went to London in 1752 and was appointed a writer in the British East India Company, being first posted to Madras. He arrived in Madras in 1753 and he was elected Provisional Deputy Governor by the Manila Council with the departure of Dawsonne Drake on 29 March 1764. He then departed Manila 10 April for Sulu with Sultan Alimuddin I, in 1765 he returned to London where was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. There he became acquainted with the civil engineer John Smeaton, who during the course of his studies on windmills had devised a descriptive scale for grading wind speed and this scale was included in the paper for which he was awarded the Copley Medal. It is believed that Dalrymple conveyed this information to Francis Beaufort, who refined the wind scale that bears his name. Whilst translating some Spanish documents captured in the Philippines in 1762, meanwhile, James Cook had been appointed in his place to lead an expedition to the South Pacific which in 1770 discovered the east coast of Australia. In 1772 Dalrymple published his first set of charts, four of which were of the seas around Sulu, in 1779, he headed the hydrographic office of the East India Company, and that of the Admiralty in 1795. In 1782 he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Royal Society—Dalrymple was elected to membership in the Society in 1771 and those signing that nomination letter were, Benjamin Franklin, Richard Hazard, John Colebrooke, John Pringle, Daniel Wray, Charles Morton, James Burrow, William Hunter, Nevil Maskelyne. James Horsburgh, Alexander Dalrymples successor Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Library of Scotland, shelfmark Nha. M90 Friendly, Alfred. Defining the Wind, The Beaufort Scale, and How a 19th-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry, ISBN 978-1-4000-4884-7 Howard T. Fry, Alexander Dalrymple and the Expansion of British Trade, London, Cass for the Royal Commonwealth Society,1970. ISBN 0-7146-2594-9 Portrait of Alexander Dalrymple, National Museum of Scotland
35.
Terra Australis
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Terra Australis is a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. The existence of Terra Australis was not based on any survey or direct observation and this theory of balancing land has been documented as early as the 5th century on maps by Macrobius, who uses the term Australis on his maps. Terra Australis was one of names applied to the largest landmass of what is now known as the continent of Australia. Other names for the hypothetical landmass have included Terra Australis Ignota, other names for the hypothetical continent have included Brasiliae Australis, Magallanica or Magellanica, La Australia del Espíritu Santo, and La grande isle de Java. Other names actually used for the continent were New Holland and Australia, Aristotle speculated, Now since there must be a region bearing the same relation to the southern pole as the place we live in bears to our pole. His ideas were expanded by Ptolemy, who believed that the Indian Ocean was enclosed on the south by land. Marcus Tullius Cicero used the term cingulus australis in referring to the Antipodes in Somnium Scipionis, the land in this zone was the Terra Australis. Christian thinkers did not discount the idea that there might be land beyond the southern seas, the first depiction of Terra Australis on a globe was probably on Johannes Schöners lost 1523 globe on which Oronce Fine is thought to have based his 1531 double cordiform map of the world. On this landmass he wrote recently discovered but not yet completely explored, the body of water beyond the tip of South America is called the “Mare Magellanicum, ” one of the first uses of navigator Ferdinand Magellans name in such a context. Schöner called the continent Brasiliae Australis in his 1533 tract, Opusculum geographicum, explorers of the Age of Discovery, from the late 15th century on, proved that Africa was almost entirely surrounded by sea, and that the Indian Ocean was accessible from both west and east. These discoveries reduced the area where the continent could be found, however, as new lands were discovered, they were often assumed to be parts of the hypothetical continent. Where Schöner departs most conspicuously from Waldseemüller is in his globes depiction of an Antarctic continent, the Zeytung described the Portuguese voyagers passing through a strait between the southernmost point of America, or Brazil, and a land to the south west, referred to as vndtere Presill. This supposed “strait” was in fact the Rio de la Plata, on this slender foundation he constructed his circum-Antarctic continent to which, for reasons that he does not explain, he gave an annular, or ring shape. Further, the distance is only moderate from this Region of Brazil to Malacca, on this scrap of information, united with the concept of the Antipodes inherited from Graeco-Roman antiquity, Schöner constructed his representation of the southern continent. His strait served as inspiration for Ferdinand Magellans expedition to reach the Moluccas by a westward route and it was taken up by his followers, the French cosmographer Oronce Fine in his world map of 1531, and the Flemish cartographers Gerardus Mercator in 1538 and Abraham Ortelius in 1570. Schöners concepts influenced the Dieppe school of mapmakers, notably in their representation of Jave la Grande, there was much interest in Terra Australis among Norman and Breton merchants at that time. In 1566 and 1570, Francisque and André dAlbaigne presented Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France, although the Admiral gave favourable consideration to these initiatives, they came to nought when Coligny was killed in 1572. Adjoining Guinea on the right are the numerous and vast Solomon Islands which lately became famous by the voyage of Alvarus Mendanius, juan Fernandez, sailing from Chile in 1576, claimed he had discovered the Southern Continent
36.
Ship commissioning
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Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service, and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to the placing of a warship in active duty with its countrys military forces, the ceremonies involved are often rooted in centuries old naval tradition. Ship naming and launching endow a ship hull with her identity, the engineering plant, weapon and electronic systems, galley, and multitudinous other equipment required to transform the new hull into an operating and habitable warship are installed and tested. The prospective commanding officer, ships officers, the petty officers, prior to commissioning, the new ship undergoes sea trials to identify any deficiencies needing correction. USS Monitor, of American Civil War fame, was commissioned less than three weeks after launch, regardless of the type of ship in question, a vessels journey towards commissioning in its nations navy begins with process known as sea trials. Sea trials begin when the ship in question is floated out of its dry dock, after a ship has successfully cleared its sea trial period, it will officially be accepted into service with its nations navy. At this point, the ship in question will undergo a process of degaussing and/or deperming, once a ships sea trials are successfully completed plans for the actual commissioning ceremony will take shape. If the ships ceremony is an affair the Captain may make a speech to the audience. Religious ceremonies, such as blessing the ship or the singing of hymns or songs. Once a ship has been commissioned its final step toward becoming a unit of the navy it now serves is to report to its home port. To decommission a ship is to terminate its career in service in the forces of a nation. Decommissioning of the vessel may also occur due to treaty agreements or for safety reasons, vessels preserved in this manner typically do not relinquish their names to other, more modern ships that may be in the design, planning, or construction phase of the parent nations navy. Prior to its decommissioning, the ship in question will begin the process of decommissioning by going through a preliminary step called inactivation or deactivation. The removed material from a ship usually ends up either rotating to another ship in the class with similar weapons and/or capabilities, or in storage pending a decision on equipments fate. During this time a crew may be thinned out via transfers. When a ship finishes its inactivation, it is then formally decommissioned, often, but not always, ships that are decommissioned end up spending the next few years in a reserve fleet before their ultimate fate is decided. Commissioning in the early United States Navy under sail was attended by no ceremony, thus, the ship was placed in commission. Commissionings were not public affairs, and unlike christening-and-launching ceremonies, were not recorded by newspapers, the first specific reference to commissioning located in naval records is a letter of November 6,1863, from Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to all navy yards and stations
37.
Arctic Circle
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The Arctic Circle is the most northerly of the abstract five major circles of latitude as shown on maps of the Earth. The region north of this circle is known as the Arctic, the position of the Arctic Circle is not fixed, as of 7 April 2017, it runs 66°33′46. 6″ north of the Equator. Its latitude depends on the Earths axial tilt, which fluctuates within a margin of 2° over a 40, 000-year period, consequently, the Arctic Circle is currently drifting northwards at a speed of about 15 m per year. The word arctic comes from the Greek word ἀρκτικός and that from the word ἄρκτος, directly on the Arctic Circle these events occur, in principle, exactly once per year, at the June and December solstices, respectively. That is true at sea level, those limits increase with elevation above sea level, tens of thousands of years ago, waves of people migrated from eastern Siberia across the Bering Strait into North America to settle. Much later, in the period, there has been migration into some Arctic areas by Europeans. The largest communities north of the Arctic Circle are situated in Russia and Norway, Murmansk, Norilsk, Tromsø, rovaniemi in Finland is the largest settlement in the immediate vicinity of the Arctic Circle, lying slightly south of the line. In contrast, the largest North American community north of the Arctic Circle, of the Canadian and United States Arctic communities, Barrow, Alaska is the largest settlement with about 4,000 inhabitants. The Arctic Circle is roughly 16,000 kilometres, the area north of the Circle is about 20,000,000 km2 and covers roughly 4% of Earths surface. The Arctic Circle passes through the Arctic Ocean, the Scandinavian Peninsula, North Asia, Northern America, the land within the Arctic Circle is divided among eight countries, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, and Iceland. In the interior, summers can be warm, while winters are extremely cold
38.
Charles Clerke
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Captain Charles Clerke RN was an officer in the Royal Navy who sailed on four voyages of exploration,3 with Captain James Cook. When Cook was killed during his 3rd expedition to the Pacific, Clerke took command, Clerke started studying at the Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth when he was 13. During the Seven Years War he served aboard HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Bellona and he was in the mizzen-top of HMS Bellona when the mast was shot away in 1761 and he became the only survivor of those who consequently fell overboard. In June 1764 he joined Captain John Byron, aboard HMS Dolphin, the Dolphin returned in May 1766. Its circumnavigation of 22 months was the shortest up to that point, upon his return Clerke published an account of encountering Patagonian giants, a hoax which the Dictionary of Canadian Biography attributed to his high spirits. Clerkes last three voyages were all under the command of Captain James Cook and he started the first voyage aboard HM Bark Endeavour as a masters mate. Cook promoted him to acting lieutenant in 1771, and he was confirmed in that rank on 31 July 1771. He was HMS Resolutions second lieutenant on Cooks second voyage, while ashore between Cooks 2nd and 3rd voyages Clerke agreed to serve time in the Kings Bench debtors prison for a debt one of his brothers, Sir John Clerke had incurred. While in debtors prison he was infected with the tuberculosis that killed him. For Cooks third expedition, Clerke was placed in command of HMS Discovery, when Cook was killed in a skirmish with Hawaiians on 14 February 1779, Clerke took command of the expedition and of HMS Resolution. He continued the exploration of the Northern Pacific coast, searching for a navigable Northwest Passage. The expedition then proceeded to the Pacific coast of Siberia, Lieutenant James King, one of his subordinates, wrote that Clerkes illness had reduced him to skeletal thinness. Clerke died from tuberculosis on his 38th birthday en route to Kamchatka from the Bering Strait and he was buried in Kamchatka on 29 August 1779. Clerkes second in command, Lieutenant John Gore took command of the expedition as captain of Resolution, the expedition then sailed via China and the Sunda Strait to Cape Town, returning to England in August 1780. In 1913, the British Admiralty erected an obelisk in Clerkes honour at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russia
39.
East Indies
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The East Indies or Indies are the lands of South and Southeast Asia. In a more restricted sense, the Indies can be used to refer to the islands of Southeast Asia, the name Indies is derived from the river Indus and is used to connote parts of Asia that came under Indian cultural influence. The East Indies may also include the former French-held Indochina, former British territories Brunei and Singapore and it does not, however, include the former Dutch New Guinea western New Guinea, which is geographically considered to be part of Melanesia. In colonial times they were just natives, however, the peoples of the East Indies comprise a wide variety of cultural diversity, and the inhabitants do not consider themselves as belonging to a single ethnic group. The major languages in this area draw from a variety of language families, and should not be confused with the term Indic. The extensive East Indies are subdivided into two sections, archaically called Hither India and Further India, the first is the former British India, the second is Southeast Asia. Historically, the king of Abyssinia was identified with Prester John of the Indies, exploration of these regions by European powers first began in the late 15th century and early 16th century led by the Portuguese explorers. The Portuguese described the region they discovered as the Indies. Eventually, the region would be broken up into a series of Indies, the East Indies, which was also called Old Indies or Great Indies, consisting of India, and the West Indies, also called New Indies or Little Indies, consisting of the Americas. The New World was initially thought to be the easternmost part of the Indies by explorer Christopher Columbus, later, to avoid confusion, the New World came to be called the West Indies, while the original Indies came to be called the East Indies. Greater India History of the Americas Indian Spanish West Indies
40.
French ship Annibal (1779)
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The Annibal was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She was designed by Jacques-Noël Sané, and was one of the earliest of his works and she was built at Brest in 1778. She sailed out to the West Indies and took part in the Battle of Grenada under Lamotte-Picquet and she was then sent out to the East Indies with Suffren and fought at the battles of Porto Praya, Sadras, Providien, Negapatam and Trincomalee in 1782. The following year she fought at the battle of Cuddalore and she was renamed Achille in 1786 to prevent confusion with the Petit Annibal. She served with the French Navy until 1794, when she was captured by the Royal Navy during the battle of the Glorious First of June and she was commissioned into the Royal Navy as the third-rate HMS Achille, retaining the French spelling of the name. However, she was in a state and was broken up at Plymouth in 1796. Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours 11671 -1870
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Great Britain
