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Hello in 1768 a converted collier endeavour set out from Plymouth Barn for Tahiti in the

Pacific so that astronomers on board could observe the transit of Venus across the sun.

Endeavour's captain was James Cook and he had secret orders to give the other international

observers the slip and head south on the voyage of exploration.

The scientific discoveries on this and on James Cook's second and third trips in the

Pacific transformed Western Europe's knowledge of almost half the world and the people who

lived there from Antarctica to the Bearing Straits.

We're discussing this now as in October we ask you the listeners to suggest today's topic.

This one came from Alison Hodg in the UK, Fukata Obroil Akon in Ireland, Mari Makai in New Zealand,

Enzo Votsu in Australia, Geoff Redford in British Columbia and Mark Green in Alaska.

My thanks to them and to all of you for sending in more than a thousand different ideas.

With me to discuss the voyages of James Cook are Simon Schaffer, Professor of the History

of Science at the University of Cambridge, Rebecca Higgert, lecturer in the History of

Science at the University of Kent and Sophie Foggan, retired Principal Lecturer at the University

of T-Side and chairman of trustees of the Captain Cook Museum in Riffy.

Simon Schaffer, I've said that Cook's voyages transformed Western Europe's knowledge of

half the world. Is that an overstatement?

No, I think it's an extraordinarily dramatic change in knowledge of the world, in one part

of the world new of the other.

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