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Departure from Portsmouth

When
21 December 1872
Where
Portsmouth, England
Part of
HMS Challenger departs Portsmouth on its scientific expedition

HMS Challenger sailed from Portsmouth on 21 December 1872, beginning a four-year scientific expedition that laid the foundation for oceanography.

The expedition, led by Captain George Nares, departed Portsmouth, England, on 21 December 1872. The Royal Society had modified the ship for scientific tasks, equipping it with laboratories. The voyage covered 68,890 nautical miles, organized in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh.

Sources

  1. Challenger expedition Wikipedia, revision of 2026-06-16
  2. HMS Challenger (1858) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-07

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.