The mutiny on HMS Bounty took place in the South Pacific, when the master's mate Fletcher Christian led part of the crew against the ship's commander, Lieutenant William Bligh. The Bounty had been sent to Tahiti to collect breadfruit plants to be transplanted in the Caribbean as cheap food for enslaved people. After months in Tahiti the ship sailed, and near Tonga the mutineers seized it. Bligh and eighteen loyal men were cast adrift in a small launch, and Bligh navigated more than three thousand nautical miles to Timor, an extraordinary feat of seamanship. Some mutineers returned to Tahiti and were later caught and tried, while Christian and others settled on Pitcairn Island with Tahitians, where their descendants still live.
Before and after
- 1789Discovery of uranium
- 1789Discovery of carbon
- 1789Lavoisier publishes his Elementary Treatise on Chemistry
- 16 March 1789Birth of Georg Simon Ohm
- 28 April 1789Mutiny on the Bounty
- 20 June 1789Tennis Court Oath
- from 14 July 1789 to 9 November 1799French Revolution
- 21 August 1789Birth of Augustin-Louis Cauchy
- 28 August 1789Discovery of Enceladus
More in Wars, politics & history
- from 1765 to 1783American Revolution
- 1790Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
- from 18 March 1839 to 29 August 1842First Opium War
- from 10 May 1857 to 20 June 1858Indian Mutiny of 1857
- from August 1899 to September 1901Boxer Rebellion
- from 8 October 1912 to 18 July 1913Balkan Wars
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 18th century.