Voyages of Discovery

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Explorer Paul Rose celebrates the achievements of famous seamen and explorers

Series in which explorer Paul Rose celebrates the achievements of famous seamen and explorers

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Paul Rose

Annabel Gillings

Jeremy Philips

Voyages of Discovery: The Figure of the Earth

The Figure of the Earth

14/12/2006

BBC Four - Voyages of Discovery, The Figure of the Earth

The story of three 18th-century French explorers' scientific mission to the Andes.

Paul Rose tells the story of three Frenchmen's 18th-century scientific mission to Ecuador to settle an international row by measuring the planet's shape.

Explorer Paul Rose tells the story of three Frenchmen who couldnt stand each other, yet set off on an eight-year scientific mission in one of the most hostile places on the planet. Their plan, to settle an international row by measuring the shape of the planet, took them to the disease-ridden rainforests and oxygen-starved peaks of the Ecuadorian Andes. 

Rose follows in the footsteps of the 18th-century explorers who were complete innocents abroad and had no idea of the horrors they were letting themselves in for. Despite disease, death and some highly disastrous sexual liaisons, the men made discoveries that fundamentally changed all our lives.

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