Vaucanson's Digesting Duck
A mechanical duck that ate grain and 'digested' it
Jacques de Vaucanson showed off a gilded duck that quacked, pecked at grain and soon produced droppings. Parisians believed it had an artificial digestive system; in fact the droppings were preloaded in a hidden compartment.
Wikipedia (English) · 18th century
Did you know
A mechanical duck that 'digested' grain fooled audiences for over a century. Magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin exposed it in 1844: the grain collected in one compartment, and pre-made 'droppings' waited in another. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1721 Proclamation of the Russian Empire — 18 years earlier
- 1762 Accession of Catherine the Great — 23 years later
- 1764 Founding of the Hermitage — 25 years later
Middle East
- 1722 Fall of Isfahan — 17 years earlier
- 1747 Ahmad Shah Durrani founds the Afghan state — 8 years later
Asia
- 1755–1758 The Dzungar genocide — 16 years later
- 1757 Battle of Plassey — 18 years later
- 1761 Third Battle of Panipat — 22 years later
Alive at the time
- Johann Sebastian Bach (aged 54)
- Voltaire (aged 45)
- Benjamin Franklin (aged 33)
- Mikhail Lomonosov (aged 28)
- James Cook (aged 11)
- Catherine the Great (aged 10)
- George Washington (aged 7)
- Vitus Bering (aged 58)
- Tokugawa Yoshimune (aged 55)
- Nader Shah (aged 51)