Overview
By 1766, the race was on between the British and the French to make new discoveries in the South Pacific. The French government commissioned Bougainville, a former army colonel and brilliant mathematician, to lead an expedition.
The Frenchman reached Tahiti in 1768. Then he sailed past Samoa and Vanuatu, arrived at the edge of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and headed north, passing the Solomon Islands. He returned to France via the Moluccas, becoming the first French navigator to sail round the world.
His account of his voyage, Description of a Voyage Around the World, became a European best-seller, and the plant bougainvillea was named after him.