Captain Bligh, set adrift by mutineers, sailed 6,700 km in an open boat.
He had 18 men, few supplies and almost no charts, and reached Timor in 47 days.
The event
More amazing facts
- 1787 · 1788 British Australia exists partly because of American independence.
- 1789 The navy's most famous mutiny broke out on a ship carrying plants.
- 1789 · 1792 Dr Guillotin did not invent the guillotine and opposed the death penalty.
- 1789 When the Bastille was stormed on 14 July 1789 it held just seven prisoners: four forgers, two lunatics and one aristocrat.
- 1789 George Washington's false teeth were not wooden.
- 1790 · 1808 The Bounty mutineers' hideout was found only 18 years later.