- Year
- 1845
- Event
- Sir John Franklin’s Arctic expedition left Greenhithe, Kent, aboard HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.
- Why it matters
- The departure began one of Britain’s best-known polar-disappearance stories, but the date catches it before the disaster, when the expedition still looked organised and ambitious.
- Possible Historically angle
- Write it from the point of departure: ships, supplies, confidence, naval prestige and the gap between what Britain thought it was sending out and what the Arctic would do to it.
- Suggested category
- Empire