geography

The American diplomat and philologist George Perkins Marsh publishes Man and Nature.

The Persian scholar Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Mas’udi (c. 896-956) is among the first to record the use of simple vertical-shaft windmills in Sistan, Persia.

Franklin makes his second expedition to the Canadian Arctic in the hope of finding a shorter sea route from Europe to Asia.

Briton James Cook is the first European to sight the Southwest Pacific region.