1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti while voyaging to (unsuccessfully) observe the 1761 Transit in Sumatra. Using the solar parallax values obtained from the 1769 transit, Hornsby wrote in "Philosophical Transitions" December 1771 that "the mean distance from the Earth to the Sun (is) 93,726,900 English miles." The radar-based value used today for the astronomical unit is . This is only a difference of eight-tenths of one percent. Considering what these astronomers had to work with, their results were "absolutely remarkable". 1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti On June 3, 1769, British navigator Captain James Cook, British naturalist Joseph Banks, British astronomer Charles Green and
Kingdom of Tahiti forced to take refuge in Moʻorea 22 December 1808, but returned and defeated his enemies at the Battle of Te Feipī. He was thereafter recognized as undisputed King of Tahiti, Moʻorea and its dependencies. Other chieftains on Tahiti became fed up with what they saw as Pomare's pretensions of power, and in 1808 they drove him from Tahiti to the nearby island of Eimeo (Moorea). These other chieftains hostile towards the missionaries, which caused the missionaries to leave Tahiti for other islands. Pomare organized military support from his kinsmen on the islands of Raiatea, Bora Bora and Huahine. Warring resumed,