Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Today In History: They'd run out of creativity two weeks ago, and were down to salt pork and biscuits...

On this date in 1777, English explorer Captain Cook, commanding HMS Resolution, stumbled across Kiritimati in the middle of the trackless Pacific. Displaying the legendary naming creativity of British seafarers, he called it "Christmas Island".

3 comments:

  1. Is that far from "Mrs. Ethel Bundy's Birthday Island?"

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  2. You're mocking one of the great minds of the western world, but that's okay. He also had a sandwich in Hawaii (by some accounts, became one).

    The English named Cape Disappointment and Cape Fear. I thought they did all right there.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, the Spanish and Portuguese tended to simply name new land according to whatever saint's day it was.

    ReplyDelete

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