Latest news with #Endeavour
NDTV
2 days ago
- General
- NDTV
Captain Cook's Long-Lost Ship Found After 250 Years. Here's Where It Was Finally Discovered
After 250 years, the long-lost ship of Captain James Cook, HMS Endeavour, has finally been discovered off the coast of Newport Harbour, Rhode Island. Originally the first European vessel to reach eastern Australia (1768-1771), it was later renamed Lord Sandwich and sank during the American War of Independence in 1778. The Australian National Maritime Museum confirmed the find after 25 years of underwater exploration and archaeological research, identifying the wreck as RI 2394 based on matching dimensions from Cook's 1768 survey. "This final report is the culmination of 25 years of detailed and meticulous archaeological study on this important vessel," said museum director Daryl Karp of the document, which he described as the "definitive statement" on the project, Pen News reported. "It has involved underwater investigation in the US and extensive research in institutions across the globe." According to the New York Post, the sunken remains then lay at the bottom of the ocean for 2 and half centuries until experts formally matched the ship with a wreck dubbed RI 2394, which was located in Newport Harbour, Rhode Island. Researchers were able to confirm that it was indeed Cook's lost ship by comparing the wreckage with the vessel's historic plans, finding that the placement of certain timbers was a dead ringer for the locations of its main and fore masts in the outline. Meanwhile, the wreck's measurements matched those taken during a 1768 survey of the Endeavour. "The size of all the timber scantlings are almost identical to Endeavour, and I'm talking within millimetres - not inches, but millimetres," declared Australian National Maritime Museum archaeologist Kieran Hosty. "The stem scarf is identical, absolutely identical." He added, "This stem scarf is also a very unique feature - we've gone through a whole bunch of 18th-century ship's plans, and we can't find anything else like it."
The Age
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
This new cli-fi novel envisages a more hopeful apocalypse
FICTION SalvageJennifer Mills Picador, $34.99 In Salvage, Jennifer Mills lets the billionaires escape our dying planet on a space station with a VIP list. And then she leaves them there to rot. This is Mills' first, fully fledged science-fiction novel to portray the before and after of ecological apocalypse, but it continues her merging of the uncanny or speculative with her artistic instinct for spatial and psychological choreography. In other words, Mills' novels begin by asking: what kind of world is this? But the focus is always on what it feels like to inhabit these unusual worlds. The Airways, Mills' previous novel, was ostensibly a queer fabulist horror story about a ghost seeking revenge. But this hook was masquerading a second, more experimental desire to assign a new form of language to this state of being. Dyschronia, which was short-listed for the 2019 Miles Franklin prize, ventured into weird fiction, imagining the desolation after the shore receded from an Australian coastal town, converting it overnight into a location of dark tourism – much to the chagrin of the few inhabitants who refused to leave. Taken all together, Mills' fiction continually returns to hauntings; her works explore how spectres from the past are eternally resurrecting in the present. Salvage is told through three interchanging sections. The first introduces us to Jude, living through the post-apocalypse by helping a loose collective of sovereign territories known as the Freelands. They implement forms of anarchy – non-hierarchical governance, direct democracy, the abolition of ownership – which history tells us works incredibly well in smaller factions but has never produced a viable macro-vision for the future. The Freelands exist on the fringes of a technologically and militarily superior state called The Alliance, which is governed by the antithesis: strict order, class, the rule of law. Each of these societies, given an opportunity to reinvent themselves, find older ideologies guiding how they rebuild the world from the scraps of older civilisations. Which way was it to utopia again? As a young girl, Jude was adopted by a billionaire, who later died in a helicopter crash. Jude's sister, Celeste, inherited the family fortune and invested it in space station project Endeavour, in which self-appointed chosen ones were given a seat on board this arc-like saviour, orbiting the Earth in a chemically induced torpor to 'sleep through the worst'. The second sections of Salvage are narrated by Celeste, on board Endeavour, shuffling at intervals down corridors, knocking into other boutique cosmonauts, looking for her sister. They soon suspect they've been abandoned or tricked, and strange occurrences and malfunctions do nothing to ease the nerves. In the third section, Jude and Celeste are together, before the apocalypse. They exist in a fortified complex called Sovereign House, basically a military bunker sequestered from the suffering and ruin experienced by everyone else. In these passages, we see Celeste persuaded by the mad billionaire looking for investors into his space station project, while Jude becomes disenchanted with her sister's myopic privilege.
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
This new cli-fi novel envisages a more hopeful apocalypse
FICTION SalvageJennifer Mills Picador, $34.99 In Salvage, Jennifer Mills lets the billionaires escape our dying planet on a space station with a VIP list. And then she leaves them there to rot. This is Mills' first, fully fledged science-fiction novel to portray the before and after of ecological apocalypse, but it continues her merging of the uncanny or speculative with her artistic instinct for spatial and psychological choreography. In other words, Mills' novels begin by asking: what kind of world is this? But the focus is always on what it feels like to inhabit these unusual worlds. The Airways, Mills' previous novel, was ostensibly a queer fabulist horror story about a ghost seeking revenge. But this hook was masquerading a second, more experimental desire to assign a new form of language to this state of being. Dyschronia, which was short-listed for the 2019 Miles Franklin prize, ventured into weird fiction, imagining the desolation after the shore receded from an Australian coastal town, converting it overnight into a location of dark tourism – much to the chagrin of the few inhabitants who refused to leave. Taken all together, Mills' fiction continually returns to hauntings; her works explore how spectres from the past are eternally resurrecting in the present. Salvage is told through three interchanging sections. The first introduces us to Jude, living through the post-apocalypse by helping a loose collective of sovereign territories known as the Freelands. They implement forms of anarchy – non-hierarchical governance, direct democracy, the abolition of ownership – which history tells us works incredibly well in smaller factions but has never produced a viable macro-vision for the future. The Freelands exist on the fringes of a technologically and militarily superior state called The Alliance, which is governed by the antithesis: strict order, class, the rule of law. Each of these societies, given an opportunity to reinvent themselves, find older ideologies guiding how they rebuild the world from the scraps of older civilisations. Which way was it to utopia again? As a young girl, Jude was adopted by a billionaire, who later died in a helicopter crash. Jude's sister, Celeste, inherited the family fortune and invested it in space station project Endeavour, in which self-appointed chosen ones were given a seat on board this arc-like saviour, orbiting the Earth in a chemically induced torpor to 'sleep through the worst'. The second sections of Salvage are narrated by Celeste, on board Endeavour, shuffling at intervals down corridors, knocking into other boutique cosmonauts, looking for her sister. They soon suspect they've been abandoned or tricked, and strange occurrences and malfunctions do nothing to ease the nerves. In the third section, Jude and Celeste are together, before the apocalypse. They exist in a fortified complex called Sovereign House, basically a military bunker sequestered from the suffering and ruin experienced by everyone else. In these passages, we see Celeste persuaded by the mad billionaire looking for investors into his space station project, while Jude becomes disenchanted with her sister's myopic privilege.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Captain Cook's Endeavour confirmed to be in Rhode Island waters
Researchers have confirmed that the 18th-century British explorer Captain James Cook's lost ship found its final resting place in Rhode Island's Newport Harbor, solving a decadeslong mystery, according to the Australian National Maritime Museum. Two Australian historians, Mike Connell and Des Liddy, originally pinpointed the location of the ship, called HMS Endeavour in 1998, the museum said in a report released earlier this month. The museum's report detailed how a 26-year archival and archaeological research program ultimately determined that the Endeavour was, in fact, at the bottom of Newport Harbor as Connell and Liddy had thought. Captain Cook famously sailed the Endeavour across the Pacific Ocean multiple times in the mid-1700s. He is remembered for his voyage to Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia, which he claimed for Britain, as well as Hawaii, where he ultimately met his fate in a dispute with indigenous residents. Cook's exploration of the islands laid the foundation for British colonization in those areas, which is why, for different reasons, it's an important part of Australian history, according to the museum's report. "For some, the Pacific voyage led by James Cook between 1768 and 1771 embodies the spirit of Europe's Age of Enlightenment," the executive summary of the report reads, "while for others it symbolises the onset of colonisation and the subjugation of First Nations Peoples." After Cook's death, the Endeavour returned to England, which went on to use it for transporting British troops and detaining prisoners during the American Revolutionary War. It was sold to private owners, who renamed the ship Lord Sandwich, and deliberately sunk in Newport Harbor in the midst of war in 1778. When Australian maritime experts initially announced in 2022 that they believed the Endeavour was among a number of ancient shipwrecks still scattered across Newport Harbor, the claim was widely debated. But a partnership between the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission and the Australian National Maritime Museum forged ahead with the research that eventually led to the wreck's identification. They are working to ensure that the wreck site is protected from now on. "Given Endeavour's historical and cultural significance to Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, England, the United States of America and First Nations peoples throughout the Pacific Ocean, positive identification of its shipwreck site requires securing the highest possible level of legislative and physical protection," the report says. American stranded in Israel with her family speaks out amid airstrike exchanges with Iran May retail sales drop more than expected Everything we know about Israel, Iran and where Trump stands on the conflict
Spectator
4 days ago
- Science
- Spectator
The remarkable quest to identify Captain Cook's Endeavour
The announcement that a shipwreck in Newport Harbor, 200 miles up the coast from New York City, has been proven to be James Cook's HMS Endeavour, will not surprise those who have followed the search for years. In 1768, when Cook set out to record the transit of Venus in Tahiti, the first of his voyages of discovery, he was a mere lieutenant. The Endeavour was not the best of his ships, and the solo journey – two ships sailed on each of his second and third Pacific voyages – was not the most productive. Every detail of what has survived of the timbers of ship 'RI 2394', matches the Endeavour's. Keel lengths are identical but for 20 centimetres. Garboard strakes are exactly the same thickness Yet the Endeavour's extraordinary history, of which Cook's command was but an adventurous prelude, gives it an iconic status around the world, in different ways for different communities. The emotive power of the stories that swirl around its decaying timbers makes this a great find, and one that will further stimulate debate about the meaning and significance of its major expedition. First, the history. The Earl of Pembroke, as the ship was originally known, was not designed to leave British waters; with a large, deep hold, it was a slow and steady conveyor of coal. The Royal Navy renamed it and gave it a complete refit, including adding guns and lining the hull with layers of tar-coated rags, wooden planks and White Stuff, a mix of whale oil, turpentine and other strong-smelling liquids. It was refitted for the transit of Venus, a rare chance to make observations that would inform our understanding of the solar system. But it was also a pretext for a secret mission – Cook opened his sealed instructions in the Pacific – to go in search of a southern continent, then commonly believed to be necessary to balance out the land north of the Equator. After stopping at other Polynesian islands and finding no polar continent, the Endeavour headed west and reached Aotearoa New Zealand, over a century after the only previous European visit. Having rounded both islands and claimed bits for George III (and shot a number of Māori people), Cook and his crew became the first outsiders to see the east coast of Australia. An industry is devoted to identifying the exact point where this occurred, an event that has divided peoples of Aboriginal and European descent ever since. Cook took the ship north, until it hit the Great Barrier Reef. With a lesser commander and crew it would have been wrecked, but luck and determination – all the guns were thrown overboard in the attempt to float it – the Endeavour reached land with a chunk of coral embedded in its hull. Back in Woolwich, it was refitted for more naval service, making three voyages to the Falkland Islands before being sold. Repairs had been considered too costly, but in 1776 it was taken back by the government as the Lord Sandwich to carry soldiers to the American War of Independence. Arriving at a British garrison at Newport, it was converted into a prison. In 1778 it became one of 22 ships scuttled to create a barricade against an attacking French fleet. The following year Newport was in French hands. The long journey of the Earl of Pembroke/Endeavour/Lord Sandwich was over. The scuttled ships' private owners wanted compensation. Some hulks were refloated, some were salvaged. Many remained partly above water, damaged by French shot and storms. Archaeological study of the seabed began when the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) was launched in 1993. The Australian National Maritime Museum (ANNM), who partnered with RIMAP in 1999, had a particular interest in the Endeavour. While, as Dave Parham, Professor of Maritime Archaeology at Bournemouth University put it to me, RIMAP was more interested in looking than finding, ANNM was convinced that the Endeavour's rich contemporary records would make identification possible. When ANNM announced early success in 2022 – a 'political error', says Parham – RIMAP dismissed the claim. The confirmation that the Endeavour has been found is the result of the extremely thorough examination that followed, of eighteenth-century ships' records, and underwater remains and artefacts, from strakes and futtocks to 'a handful of undecorated buttons'. The ANNM's report is among the best of its kind I have seen. Every detail of what has survived of the timbers of ship 'RI 2394', matches the Endeavour's. Keel lengths are identical but for 20 centimetres. Garboard strakes are exactly the same thickness. The timber types are right. And so on. The Endeavour has lent its name to replica ships, Apollo 15's module, the ill-fated Space Shuttle and a SpaceX capsule. Its six cannon, long recovered from the Great Barrier Reef, now lie in museums around the world. The wreck's final discovery will resonate from Whitby, where the Earl of Pembroke was made, to the marine graveyard in Rhode Island, and all the places visited in between – Britain's ports and boatyards, Russia, the Falklands, Pacific islands, Aotearoa New Zealand, Indonesia, and especially Australia. Identifying the Endeavour was a long, cooperative project involving many people. Making sense of Cook's expedition, and reconciling its consequences, may yet prove more challenging.
