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Herman Spöring Jr.
Herman Diedrich Spöring Jr. (1733–1771) was a Finnish explorer, draughtsman, botanist and a naturalist. Early life Herman Spöring Jr. was born in 1733 in the town of Turku, at that time a major Finnish city and administrative center of the Swedish Empire. He was the son of an amateur naturalist and professor of Medicine at the Academy of Åbo, Herman Spöring Sr. (1701–1747), in Turku, Finland. Spöring Jr. attended the Academy as a youth, studying medicine under his father. Sometime around 1755, at his age of 22, he moved to London, where he began working at a watchmakers. During this time, he became acquainted with the Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander, who employed him as his personal clerk for a time. In 1768, Spöring Jr. was enlisted as a clerk, assistant naturalist and personal secretary in the entourage of Joseph Banks, a wealthy young botanist who was preparing for an expedition to the Pacific Ocean, sponsored by the British Royal Society. This expedition had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, opposite Estonia. Finland has a population of 5.6 million. Its capital and largest city is Helsinki. The majority of the population are Finns, ethnic Finns. The official languages are Finnish language, Finnish and Swedish language, Swedish; 84.1 percent of the population speak the first as their mother tongue and 5.1 percent the latter. Finland's climate varies from humid continental climate, humid continental in the south to boreal climate, boreal in the north. The land cover is predominantly boreal forest biome, with List of lakes of Finland, more than 180,000 recorded lakes. Finland was first settled around 9000 BC after the Last Glacial Period, last Ice Age. During the Stone Age, various cultures emerged, distinguished by differen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transit Of Venus
A transit of Venus takes place when Venus passes directly between the Sun and the Earth (or any other superior planet), becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a transit, Venus is visible as a small black circle moving across the face of the Sun. Transits of Venus reoccur periodically. A pair of transits takes place eight years apart in December (Gregorian calendar) followed by a gap of 121.5 years, before another pair occurs eight years apart in June, followed by another gap, of 105.5 years. The dates advance by about two days per 243-year cycle. The periodicity is a reflection of the fact that the orbital periods of Earth and Venus are close to 8:13 and 243:395 commensurabilities. The last pairs of transits occurred on 8 June 2004 and 5–6 June 2012. The next pair of transits will occur on 10–11 December 2117 and 8 December 2125. Transits of Venus were in the past used to determine the size of the Solar System. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tolaga Bay
Tolaga Bay () is both a bay and small town on the East Coast, New Zealand, East Coast of New Zealand's North Island located 45 kilometres northeast of Gisborne, New Zealand, Gisborne and 30 kilometres south of Tokomaru Bay. The region around the bay is rugged and remote, and for many years the only access to the town was by boat. Because the bay is shallow, a long wharf – the second longest in New Zealand (600m) after the Tiwai Point wharf at Bluff (1,500m) – was built in the 1920s to accommodate visiting vessels. The last cargo ship to use the wharf loaded a cargo of maize in 1967. The town is a popular holiday spot. Its population is predominantly Māori, a centre of the Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti hapū and home of chief Te Kani-a-Takirau (died 1856) and tohunga Nōpera Te Rangiuia, Te Rangiuia (died 1850). Geography The Ūawa River reaches the Pacific Ocean in the middle of Tolaga Bay. There is a bar at the river mouth with around 2 metres of water at high tide. The Ūawa Rive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of island countries, sixth-largest island country by area and lies east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The Geography of New Zealand, country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps (), owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. Capital of New Zealand, New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland. The islands of New Zealand were the last large habitable land to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands and subsequently developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight and record New Zealand. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polynesia
Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in common, including Polynesian languages, linguistic relations, Polynesian culture, cultural practices, and Tradition, traditional beliefs. In centuries past, they had a strong shared tradition of sailing and Polynesian navigation, using stars to navigate at night. The term was first used in 1756 by the French writer Charles de Brosses, who originally applied it to all the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, islands of the Pacific. In 1831, Jules Dumont d'Urville proposed a narrower definition during a lecture at the Société de Géographie of Paris. By tradition, the islands located in the South Seas, southern Pacific have also often been called the South Sea Islands, and their inhabitants have been called South Sea Islanders. The Hawai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quadrant (instrument)
A quadrant is an instrument used to measure angles up to 90°. Different versions of this instrument could be used to calculate various readings, such as longitude, latitude, and time of day. It was first proposed by Ptolemy as a better kind of astrolabe. Several different variations of the instrument were later produced by medieval Muslim astronomers. Mural quadrants were important astronomical instruments in 18th-century European observatories, establishing a use for positional astronomy. Etymology The term ''quadrant'', meaning one fourth, refers to the fact that early versions of the instrument were derived from astrolabes. The quadrant condensed the workings of the astrolabe into an area one fourth the size of the astrolabe face; it was essentially a quarter of an astrolabe. History During Rigvedic times in ancient India, quadrants called 'Tureeyam's were used to measure the extent of a great solar eclipse. The use of a Tureeyam for observing a solar eclipse by Ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is the North Island of New Zealand. The island was formed from Volcano, volcanic activity in two overlapping parts, ''Tahiti Nui'' (bigger, northwestern part) and ''Tahiti Iti'' (smaller, southeastern part); it is high and mountainous with surrounding coral reefs. Its population was 189,517 in 2017, making it by far the most populous island in French Polynesia and accounting for 68.7% of its total population; the 2022 Census recorded a population of 191,779. Tahiti is the economic, cultural, and political centre of French Polynesia. The capital of French Polynesia, Papeete, Papeete, is located on the northwest coast of Tahiti. The only international airport in the region, Faaʻa International ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Society Islands
The Society Islands ( , officially ; ) are an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean that includes the major islands of Tahiti, Mo'orea, Moorea, Raiatea, Bora Bora and Huahine. Politically, they are part of French Polynesia, an overseas country of France, overseas country of the France, French Republic. Geographically, they form part of Polynesia. Name The term ''Society Islands'' was first used by Captain James Cook when he visited the Leeward Islands (Society Islands), Leeward Islands, a subgroup of six of the modern-day Society Islands, during his First voyage of James Cook, expedition to the south Pacific Ocean in 1769. It has been asserted that the name honors the Royal Society, the sponsor of his voyage, but this is disputed. Cook wrote in his journal: History Settlement The first Polynesians are understood to have arrived on these islands around 1000AD. Oral history origin The islanders explain their origins in terms of an oral tradition, orally transmitted sto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Cook
Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 1768 and 1779. He completed the first recorded circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand and was the first known European to visit the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands. Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager before enlisting in the Royal Navy in 1755. He served during the Seven Years' War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the St. Lawrence River during the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, siege of Quebec. In the 1760s, he mapped the coastline of Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland and made important astronomical observations which brought him to the attention of the Admiralty (United Kingdom), Admiralty and the Royal Society. This acclaim came at a crucial moment in Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lieutenant
A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services and police forces. The rank in armies and air forces is often subdivided into subcategories of seniority. In Comparative navy officer ranks of Anglophone countries, English-speaking navies, lieutenants are often equivalent to the army rank of Captain (armed forces), captain; in other navies, the lieutenants are usually equal to their army counterparts. ''Lieutenant'' may also appear as part of a title used in various other organisations with a codified command structure. It often designates someone who is "second-in-command", and as such, may precede the name of the rank directly above it. For example, a "lieutenant master" is likely to be second-in-command to the "master" in an organisation using both ranks. Political uses include lieu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early Middle Ages, medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Kingdom of France, France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the English Navy of the early 16th century; the oldest of the British Armed Forces, UK's armed services, it is consequently known as the Senior Service. From the early 18th century until the World War II, Second World War, it was the world's most powerful navy. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing and defending the British Empire, and four Imperial fortress colonies and a string of imperial bases and coaling stations secured the Royal Navy's ability to assert naval superior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HM Bark Endeavour
HMS ''Endeavour'' was a British Royal Navy research vessel that Lieutenant James Cook commanded to Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia on his first voyage of discovery from 1768 to 1771. She was launched in 1764 as the collier ''Earl of Pembroke'', with the Navy purchasing her in 1768 for a scientific mission to the Pacific Ocean and to explore the seas for the surmised '' Terra Australis Incognita'' or "unknown southern land". Commissioned as His Majesty's Bark ''Endeavour'', she departed Plymouth in August 1768, rounded Cape Horn and reached Tahiti in time to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun. She then set sail into the largely uncharted ocean to the south, stopping at the islands of Huahine, Bora Bora, and Raiatea west of Tahiti to allow Cook to claim them for Great Britain. In September 1769, she anchored off New Zealand, becoming the first European vessel to reach the islands since Abel Tasman's ''Heemskerck'' 127 years earlier. In April 1770, ''Endeavo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
