The Voyages of Captain Cook
Mondays, March 9 and 16 | 9:30 a.m. – 12 noon
Bethany Congregational Church 556 N. Hope Avenue, Santa Barbara
VISTAS member price: $30; non-member price $45
Presented by David DeSelm
In the year 1769, a British seaman named James Cook and a team of astronomers with telescopes, sextants, and chronometers measured a rare astronomical event called a “Transit of Venus” from the remote island of Tahiti. These measurements would be used by experts in the British Royal Society to calculate the distance from the Earth to the Sun—a fervent goal for astronomers of the time. Almost 200 years later, 20th c. astronomers, using radar and spacecraft, concluded that the calculations from Cook’s observations in 1769 were 98.2% accurate! Upon leaving Tahiti, Cook abruptly changed course and sailed his ship on a secret mission for the British Admiralty. This spawned two more clandestine expeditions, to opposite ends of the world. This course will trace the voyages of exploration by Captain Cook in the late 18th century—the oceans he traversed, the lands he visited and peoples he met, the challenges he encountered … and the price he paid.