Antarctica was first sighted only in 1820, by the Bellingshausen–Lazarev expedition — by then Watt's steam engine was already half a century old.
The events
- Watt's steam engine1769 · Glasgow. Scottish engineer James Watt patented a steam engine with a separate condenser, far more efficient than earlier designs. Watt's improved engines powered Britain's Industrial Revolution.
- Sighting of Antarctica1820 · Antarctic. On 28 January 1820 the sloops Vostok and Mirny under Fabian von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev approached the Antarctic ice shelf. It was among the first sightings of the sixth continent, whose existence had been only a hypothesis for centuries.
More amazing facts
- 1741 · 1768 Steller's sea cow was discovered in 1741 and wiped out in just 27 years: the last was apparently killed in 1768, the year Cook set off on his first voyage.
- 1751 · 1762 Catherine II corresponded with Voltaire and Diderot and offered to publish the Encyclopédie, banned in France, in Riga.
- 1755 In January 1755 Moscow University was founded; that November an earthquake destroyed Lisbon and shook all of Europe.
- 1755 Moscow University was founded in January 1755.
- 1775 · 1776 In January 1775 Pugachev was executed in Moscow; in April the first shots of the American War of Independence were fired.
- 1776 The Bolshoi Theatre and the United States are the same age: the theatre dates from March 1776, the Declaration of Independence from July of that year.