1776 - Exploration, Colonization

Exploration, Colonization

Captain James Cook, Royal Navy, dines at London with James Boswell, who tells Doctor Johnson he wants to accompany Cook on his next voyage: "One is carried away with the general, grand, and indistinct notion of A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD" (see 1775). Johnson discourages him, saying, "A man is to guard himself against taking a thing in general." Cook embarks in July on a third expedition to the Pacific, this time with the consort ship H.M.S. Discovery accompanying his H.M.S. Resolution. His orders are to seek a possible Northwest Passage across North America from Atlantic to Pacific (see Sandwich Islands, 1778).

San Francisco has its beginnings in the presidio of Yerba Buena (good herb) established September 17 by Spanish Army lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga in California (see 1769). Monks establish the Mission San Francisco de Asis (later to be the Mission Dolores) October 9 (see 1846).