The Burke and Wills Expedition - Part 1 - Australia, the Royal Society of Victoria and Robert Burke

The first episode in the Burke and Wills Expedition series provides background to the endeavor - which was an expedition to cross Australia in 1860-61. We are introduced to the organizers of the expedition - Royal Society of Victoria - and its eventual leader, Robert Burke. Key people and places Robert Burke - Irish police superintendent from Castlemaine. Will be named leader of the expedition. Royal Society of Victoria - aka The Society. Scientific society based in Melbourne. They will organize the expedition. Exploration Committee - The committee of the Society which oversaw the Burke and Wills Expedition. Victoria Exploring Expedition (VEE) - The official name of the expedition led by Robert Burke to cross the Australian continent. Sir William Stawell - Key member of the Exploration Committee, and Chief Justice of Victoria. John Macadam - Secretary of the Exploration Committee. John Bruce - Wealthy Australian businessman who supported Robert Burke's bid to lead the expedition. Peter Edgerton Warburton - aka Major Warburton - Police Commissioner of South Australia and candidate to lead the VEE. Gustov von Tempsky - Prussian adventurer and candidate to lead the VEE. George Landells - Horse trader who would bring 25 camels to Australia to be part of the upcoming expedition. Would later be named second-in-command of the VEE. Charles Sturt - British soldier who would explore Australia - discovering Cooper's Creek in 1844.  John McDouall Stuart - Scottish explorer who would be the chief competitor with the VEE to blaze a route across Australia.  Augustus Gregory - Explorer who had gone from Brisbane to Adelaide in 1858. He turned down the opportunity to lead the VEE, but recommended any expedition go to Cooper's Creek and set up a depot - and use it as a base for striking out to the north.  Cooper's Creek - River in central Australia. It is about halfway across the continent if someone is traveling between Melbourne and Gulf of Carpentaria in the north.  William Wills - British surveyor and astronomer who will eventually become the second-in-command of the VEE.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Explorers Podcast is about the greatest explorers and explorations in history. On the Explorers Podcast, the explorers we cover include Ernest Shackleton, Ibn Battuta, Roald Amundsen, Frederick Cook, Adrien de Gerlache, John McDouall Stuart, Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, Matt Rutherford, Jacques Marquette, Louis Jolliet, James Cook, Abel Tasman, Alice Morrison, Fridtjof Nansen, Yuri Gagarin, Jacques Cartier, Richard Francis Burton, Teddy Roosevelt, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, James Beckwourth, Alvise Cadamosto, Henry the Navigator, Andres de Urdaneta, Edmund Hillar, Tenzing Norgay, George Mallory, Marco Polo, Xu Fu, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, Burke and Wills Expedition, Robert O'Hara Burke, William Wills, Hanno the Navigator, Lewis and Clark, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Hernan Cortes, John Franklin, Lost Franklin Expedition, Francis Drake, Diogo Cao, Pytheas, Nellie Bly, Christopher Columbus, Panfilo de Narvaez, Bartolomeu Dias, Mungo Park, John Cabot, Erik the Red, Leif Erikson, Zebulon Pike, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, Ferdinand Magellan, and Zheng He and the Chinese Treasure Fleet, Neil Armstrong, Aztec Empire, Moctezuma, Montezuma, Robert Falcon Scott, Tom Creen, Frank Wild, Cândido Rondon, Brendan the Navigator, and Vladimir Atlasov. We also cover a variety of subjects and events and travel to many places. Topics include the Far East, the River of Doubt, the Manila Galleons, Mount Everest, the Moon Landing, Apollo 11, the circumnavigation of the world, the source of the Nile, the New World, Vinland, the Niger River, Timbuktu, the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Horn, Antarctica, the Arctic, the Northwest Passage, the North Pole, the South Pole, the Congo River, the Chinese Treasure Fleet, the Corps of Discovery, Tenochtitlán, Japan, China, the Silk Road, the Spice Islands, the Moluccas, the Caravel, Mecca, Medina, Lake Tanganyika, Sputnik, Tasmania, Australia, Siberia, the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes, the Seven Cities of Gold, and much, much more.