While the Thunder Stone for the Bronze Horseman was being hauled to the Neva, Cook was charting Australia.
He landed at Botany Bay in April 1770, and that same year the 1,500-tonne boulder reached Saint Petersburg.
The events
- The Thunder Stone reaches Saint Petersburg1770–1782 · Saint Petersburg, Senate Square. For the Bronze Horseman's pedestal a granite boulder of some 1,500 tonnes was found at Lakhta. It took almost two years to drag it overland and float it on a purpose-built barge to the city in 1770 — the largest stone ever moved by humans. The monument was unveiled in 1782.
- Cook's first voyage1768–1771 · Botany Bay. Aboard HMS Endeavour, James Cook observed the transit of Venus in Tahiti, charted New Zealand and in 1770 landed at Botany Bay. He claimed Australia's east coast for the British Crown.
More amazing facts
- 1769 · 1820 Antarctica was first sighted only in 1820, by the Bellingshausen–Lazarev expedition — by then Watt's steam engine was already half a century old.
- 1769 · 1815 The victor and the vanquished of Waterloo were the same age: Wellington was born on 1 May 1769, Napoleon on 15 August that same year.
- 1770 The Vatican forbade copying Allegri's Miserere, but 14-year-old Mozart wrote it down from memory.
- 1770 · 1780 The mass-produced toothbrush was invented in prison.
- 1770 · 1809 Napoleon lost at chess to a 'robot' with a man inside.
- 1770 Amazon Mechanical Turk is named after a chess automaton from 1770.