Endeavour and Exploration: The Royal Society and the Southern Seas and a World Expo for Australia in 2020

Now that the flood in Brisbane has subsided, I thought I'd pen a few words about my recent trip to our nation's capital in Canberra to see the Captain Cook exhibition at the National Museum of Australia, a special exhibit held in conjunction with the Royal Society of London to mark the 350th Anniversary of the Royal Society's charter. Foundation Expo '88 is behind a nation-wide push to host a World Exposition in Australia to mark the 250th Anniversary of Captain Cook's 1770 voyage to Australia in 2020.

Sending Captain Cook to the Southern Seas to observe the transit of Venus from the Pacific was commissioned by the Society, after it was determined that this would be a once in a century opportunity to do so, after several viewing points had been observed from other parts of the World. Hence the 1769 to 1770 window of opportunity came into being, and a voyage to Tahiti was planned, which co-incided with a trip up the eastern coast of the Australian continent. On August 21 1770, at Possession Island, the purposely named island on Cape York, off the present coast of Queensland, Captain Cook claimed the eastern sea board of the continent for the British Crown, which would lead to, ultimately, after the US declaration of Independence, to Britain deciding to send her convicts to the new Australian continent, and not to America anymore, which led directly to the European settlement of Australia.

The renowned botanist Sir Joseph Banks accompanied Cook on this expedition and made numerous notes and sketches on the flora of the new continent, naming many new species of plant life, leaving us also a lasting legacy categorizing for future generations.

The chief purpose of observing the transit of Venus across the sun however, was to assist in working out the distance between the Sun and the Earth, which had not been known, hence setting the major benchmark in interstellar distances, one astronomical unit.

Cook's initial voyage of course led to further subsequent voyages and later the 1788 British settlement of the Australian continent, which was celebrated with Brisbane's World Expo '88 in 1988.

Here I am pictured with Captain James Cook at the entrance to the exhibition in Canberra, which returns to London in February 2011. Many original artifacts that were used in the original expedition, including maps and instruments, diaries, and letters, as well as the one of the original cannons from the ship Endeavour were on display.