41: 🦜 William Dampier, explorer, pirate, privateer, navigator, and naturalist

09/18/22 • 47 min

2 Listeners

Ahoy me hearties, weight anchor and lets be off!

We look at the life of one of the most amazing but forgotten men of the 1600s, William Dampier. Ever curious he was an explorer, navigator, naturalist, writer and so much more. The author of A New Voyage Around the World, his accounts opened the world to the public. Never before had people experienced such exotic locations from their own homes or had such detailed descriptions of the world beyond their shores. From stories of raids on Spanish settlements in the Pacific to first setting step on the shores of Australia his vivid accounts were a world first. He inspired Charles Darwin, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Alexander von Humboldt and many more. Sadly his more lawless acts would lead him, in the eyes of some, to be little more than a common pirate but we hope to show you just how wrong this is.

Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/william-dampier-explorer-pirate-privateer-navigator-and-naturalist

Ahoy me hearties, weight anchor and lets be off!

Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/william-dampier-explorer-pirate-privateer-navigator-and-naturalist

Previous Episode

40: ⌛ What is time?

1 Recommendations

Time is one of the biggest mysteries of science but also one of the fundamental aspects of our reality. It’s nature has been discussed for centuries, from Aristotle to Newton to Einstein, we’ve sought answers but only found more questions as we’ve peeled back it’s layers. There is no fixed ‘now’, every point in space has it’s own flow of time. Does time even exist? How much of what we feel is simply our brain attempting to make sense of the world? Join Anton and me as we uncover it’s secrets.

Show notes: https://curiosityofpod.com/episodes/what-is-time

Thank you to Ronan for allowing us to use his song When is the Future?

Written and produced by Ronan Harris
Published by Schubert Music Publishing
Taken from the VNV Nation album “Noire”

Next Episode

42: 🧒22 Orphans to Save the World - Intelligent Speech 2022

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We were honoured to be invited to talk at Intelligent Speech 2022 on the theme of crossings. https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/

We selected the Balmis expedition - a Spanish attempt to vaccinate their empire from smallpox in the early 1800s but in an age before air travel and refrigeration how do you transfer a delicate vaccine across the world’s oceans? Enter 22 orphans to save the world...

We had a few technical issues during recording but I have tried my best to clean the audio up.