Thor Heyerdahl sets sail in Ra II, 17 May, 1970

Thor Heyerdahl's first attempt to prove the ancient Egyptians could cross the Atlantic in a Papyrus reed boat, in the Ra, failed, but it's successor, Ra II, didn't.

Intrigued by the strong resemblance between various aspects of ancient Egyptian and pre-Columbian culture, Thor Heyerdahl set out to demonstrate that the sources of New World technology and belief could have come from across the Atlantic. Noting the similarities between the designs of the reed boats found on tomb walls in Egypt with those found on Lake Chad, the Andean Lake Titicaca, and Easter Island, Thor set out to show that ancient civilizations could have had contact in not only Pre-Columbian times, but Pre-Dynasic Egypt times.

Thor's failure with the Ra was written off as a failure of the design based on more modern Egyptian reed river boats, and he decided to base the Ra II on a design synthesized from boats still used on Lake Titicaca in the Andes and boats still used in Morocco. To fascillitate the building of this new boat Thor brought 4 Master boat builders from Bolivia to work with his Moroccan boat building crew, and collected his Papyrus reeds from Lake Tana at the head of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia.

Thor & his internationaly representational crew: Yuri Alexandrovich Senkevich (Soviet Union), Norman Baker (United States), Carlo Mauri (Italy), Santiago Genoves (Mexico), Madanni Ait Ouhanni (Morocco), Kei Ohara (Japan) and Georges Sourial (Egypt), set sail from Safi, Morocco, on this day in 1970, reaching Barbados in just 57 days with the boat still intact.

In 1977 Thor created another reed boat of similar design, the Tigris, which he sailed from Iraq through the Persian Gulf, into the Indian Ocean to Pakistan, and then back across to the Red Sea, but that's for another day.

Other Historical Highlights for Today:

• 1673 - Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River.
• 1749 - Edward Jenner, inventor of the Smallpox vaccine, is Born (d. 1823)
• 1792 - The New York Stock Exchange is formed.
• 1846 - The saxophone is patented by Adolphe Sax.
• 1866 - Erik Satie, French composer, is Born (d. 1925)
• 1875 - Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.
• 1902 - Archaeologist Spyridon Stais finds the Antikythera mechanism.
• 1903 - James Thomas "Cool Papa" Bell, baseball player, Negro National League legend, coach & trainer of major-league baseball greats Ernie Banks, Jackie Robinson, and Elston Howard, is Born (d. 1991)
• 1917 - Charles Anthoni Johnson Brooke, ruler of Sarawak (one of the two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo), died (b. 1829)
• 1936 - Dennis Hopper, actor, director, photographer, art collector, is Born
• 1942 - Taj Mahal, singer, guitarist, resident of Kaua'i, is Born
• 1943 - The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.
• 1948 - Bill Bruford, polyrhythmic drummer, songwriter, former member of both Yes & King Crimson, is Born
• 1965 - Trent Reznor, singer, songwriter, leader of Nine Inch Nails, is Born
  
• 1992 - Lawrence Welk, American musician, bandleader, television visionary, died (b. 1903)
• 2002 - Dave Berg, cartoonist with Mad Magazine, died (b. 1920)
• 2002 - Sharon Sheeley, songwriter (she wrote "Poor Little Fool," "Dum Dum," & "Somethin' Else."), died. She was in the taxi with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran in the crash that took Eddie Cochran's life. (b. 1940)
• 2003 - Mozilla Firefox. Browser renamed from Phoenix to Firebird.
• 2004 - Same-sex marriage becomes legal in Massachusetts.
• 2004 - Tony Randall, actor, star of The Odd Couple TV series, as well as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) & Pillow Talk (1959), died (b. 1920)

Rev. Dr. Frederick J. Freelance, Ph.D., D.F.S

[ Edited by: freddiefreelance on 2005-05-17 08:25 ]