Episode 1 of 5
Royal Society petition for a Pacific expedition
- When
- 16 February 1768
- Where
- Britain
- Part of
- Departure of HMS Endeavour
The Royal Society petitioned King George III in February 1768 to finance a scientific expedition to observe the 1769 transit of Venus.
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 publicly stated goal of the resulting voyage was to observe the transit from the vantage point of Tahiti.
Sources
- HMS Endeavour Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-21
- James Cook Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-22
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.