Charles-Marie De La Condamine
Charles Marie de La Condamine (28 January 1701 – 4 February 1774) was a French explorer, geographer, and mathematician. He spent ten years in territory which is now Ecuador, measuring the length of a degree of latitude at the equator and preparing the first map of the Amazon region based on astro-geodetic observations. Furthermore he was a contributor to the ''Encyclopédie''.'' Biography Charles Marie de La Condamine was born in Paris as a son of well-to-do parents, Charles de La Condamine and Louise Marguerite Chourses. He studied at the Collège Louis-le-Grand where he was trained in humanities as well as in mathematics. After finishing his studies, he enlisted in the army and fought in the war against Spain (1719). After returning from the war, he became acquainted with scientific circles in Paris. On 12 December 1730 he became a member of the Académie des Sciences and was appointed Assistant Chemist at the Academy. In 1729 La Condamine and his friend Voltaire exploite ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, and science. For its leading role in the arts and sciences, as well as its very early system of street lighting, in the 19th century it became known as "the City of Light". Like London, prior to the Second World War, it was also sometimes called the capital of the world. The City of Paris is the centre of the ÃŽle-de-France region, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,262,544 in 2019, or about 19% of the population of France, making the region France's primate city. The Paris Region had a GDP of €739 billion ($743 billion) in 2019, which is the highest in Europe. According to the Economist Intelli ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Levant Company
The Levant Company was an English chartered company formed in 1592. Elizabeth I of England approved its initial charter on 11 September 1592 when the Venice Company (1583) and the Turkey Company (1581) merged, because their charters had expired, as she was eager to maintain trade and political alliances with the Ottoman Empire.Kenneth R. Andrews (1964), Elizabethan Privateering 1583–1603, Cambridge University Press Its initial charter was good for seven years and was granted to Edward Osborne, Richard Staper, Thomas Smith and William Garret with the purpose of regulating English trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Levant. The company remained in continuous existence until being superseded in 1825. A member of the company was known as a ''Turkey Merchant''. History The origins of the Levant Company lay in the Italian trade with Constantinople, and the wars against the Turks in Hungary, although a parallel was routed to Morocco and the Barbary Coast on a similar trade winds ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the island, Santo Domingo, which came to refer specifically to the Spanish-held Captaincy General of Santo Domingo, now the Dominican Republic. The borders between the two were fluid and changed over time until they were finally solidified in the Dominican War of Independence in 1844. The French had established themselves on the western portion of the islands of Hispaniola and Tortuga by 1659. In the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697, Spain formally recognized French control of Tortuga Island and the western third of the island of Hispaniola. In 1791, slaves and some Dominican Creoles took part in the Vodou ceremony Bois Caïman and planned the Haitian Revolution. The slave rebellion later allied with Republican French forces following the abolition of slavery in the colony in 1793, althoug ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Martinique
Martinique ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea. It has a land area of and a population of 364,508 inhabitants as of January 2019.Populations légales 2019: 972 Martinique INSEE One of the , it is directly north of Saint Lucia, northwest of [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Joseph De Jussieu
Joseph de Jussieu (3 September 1704 – 11 April 1779), was a French botanist and explorer, member of the Jussieu family. He introduced the common garden heliotrope (''Heliotropium arborescens'') to European gardeners. He was born in Lyon, and was the brother of Bernard and Antoine de Jussieu. He accompanied Charles Marie de La Condamine, Louis Godin and Pierre Bouguer on a voyage to South America in 1735, primarily to Ecuador with main aim to make astronomical sightings at the Equator to help establish shape of the Earth. He died in Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ..., aged 74. See also * De Jussieu family References 18th-century French botanists Members of the French Academy of Sciences 1704 births 1779 deaths {{France-botanist-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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La Rochelle
La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle''; oc, La Rochèla ) is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department. With 75,735 inhabitants in 2017, La Rochelle is the most populated commune in the department and ranks fifth in the New Aquitaine region after Bordeaux, the regional capital, Limoges, Poitiers and Pau. Its inhabitants are called "les Rochelaises" and "les Rochelais". Situated on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean the city is connected to the ÃŽle de Ré by a bridge completed on 19 May 1988. Since the Middle-Ages the harbour has opened onto a protected strait, the Pertuis d'Antioche and is regarded as a "Door océane" or gateway to the ocean because of the presence of its three ports (fishing, trade and yachting). The city has a strong commercial tradition, having an active port from very early on in its history. La Rochelle underwent sustained ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pierre Bouguer
Pierre Bouguer () (16 February 1698, Croisic – 15 August 1758, Paris) was a French mathematician, geophysicist, geodesist, and astronomer. He is also known as "the father of naval architecture". Career Bouguer's father, Jean Bouguer, one of the best hydrographers of his time, was Regius Professor of hydrography at Le Croisic in lower Brittany, and author of a treatise on navigation. He taught his sons Pierre and Jan at their home, where he also taught private students. In 1714, at the age of 16, Pierre was appointed to succeed his deceased father as professor of hydrography. In 1727 he gained the prize given by the French Academy of Sciences for his paper ''On the masting of ships'', beating Leonhard Euler; and two other prizes, one for his dissertation ''On the best method of observing the altitude of stars at sea'', the other for his paper ''On the best method of observing the variation of the compass at sea''. These were published in the Prix de l'Académie des Science ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Louis Godin
Louis Godin (28 February 1704 – 11 September 1760) was a French astronomer and member of the French Academy of Sciences. He worked in Peru, Spain, Portugal and France. Biography Godin was born in Paris; his parents were François Godin and Elisabeth Charron. He was graduated at the College of Louis le Grand, and studied astronomy under Joseph-Nicolas Delisle. His astronomical tables (1724) gave him reputation, and the French Academy of Sciences elected him a pensionary member. He was commissioned to write a continuation of the history of the academy, left uncompleted by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, and was also authorized to submit to the minister, Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury, the best means of discovering the truth in regard to the figure of the Earth, and proposed sending expeditions to the equator and the polar sea. The minister approved the plan and appropriated the necessary means, the academy designating Charles Marie de La Condamine, Pierre Bouguer, and Godin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pierre Charles Le Monnier
Pierre Charles Le Monnier (; 23 November 1715 – 3 April 1799) was a French astronomer. His name is sometimes given as Lemonnier. Biography Le Monnier was born in Paris, where his father Pierre (1675–1757), also an astronomer, was professor of philosophy at the college d'Harcourt. His first recorded astronomical observation was made before he was sixteen, and the presentation of an elaborate lunar map resulted in his admission to the French Academy of Sciences, on 21 April 1736, aged only 20. He was chosen in the same year to accompany Pierre Louis Maupertuis and Alexis Clairaut on their geodetical expedition for measuring a meridian arc of approximately one degree's length to Torne Valley in Lapland. In 1738, shortly after his return, he explained, in a memoir read before the Academy, the advantages of John Flamsteed's mode of determining right ascensions. His persistent recommendation of British methods and instruments contributed effectively to the reform of French p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alexis Claude Clairaut
Alexis Claude Clairaut (; 13 May 1713 – 17 May 1765) was a French mathematician, astronomer, and geophysicist. He was a prominent Newtonian whose work helped to establish the validity of the principles and results that Sir Isaac Newton had outlined in the '' Principia'' of 1687. Clairaut was one of the key figures in the expedition to Lapland that helped to confirm Newton's theory for the figure of the Earth. In that context, Clairaut worked out a mathematical result now known as "Clairaut's theorem". He also tackled the gravitational three-body problem, being the first to obtain a satisfactory result for the apsidal precession of the Moon's orbit. In mathematics he is also credited with Clairaut's equation and Clairaut's relation. Biography Childhood and early life Clairaut was born in Paris, France, to Jean-Baptiste and Catherine Petit Clairaut. The couple had 20 children, however only a few of them survived childbirth. His father taught mathematics. Alexis was a prodigy †... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pierre Louis Maupertuis
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (; ; 1698 – 27 July 1759) was a French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters. He became the Director of the Académie des Sciences, and the first President of the Prussian Academy of Science, at the invitation of Frederick the Great. Maupertuis made an expedition to Lapland (region), Lapland to determine the shape of the Earth. He is often credited with having invented the principle of least action; a version is known as Maupertuis's principle – an integral equation that determines the path followed by a physical system. His work in natural history is interesting in relation to modern science, since he touched on aspects of heredity and the struggle for life. Biography Maupertuis was born at Saint-Malo, France, to a moderately wealthy family of merchant-French corsairs, corsairs. His father, RenÄ—, had been involved in a number of enterprises that were central to the monarchy so that he thrived socially and politically. The son w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists and among the most influential scientists of all time. He was a key figure in the philosophical revolution known as the Enlightenment. His book (''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy''), first published in 1687, established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing infinitesimal calculus. In the , Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that formed the dominant scientific viewpoint for centuries until it was superseded by the theory of relativity. Newton used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion, account for ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |