Nullius in verba and cited elsewhere. Nullius in verba The Royal Society website explains the motto thus: It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment. The phrase came from Horace's "Epistle" to his benefactor Maecenas, where he claims not to be devoted to any particular sect but is rather an eclectic by nature. These are the words, forming two hexameters in the original context: The minor planet known as 11059 Nulliusinverba in the asteroid belt is named after the expression. The phrase is
Terra nullius Indigenous Australians. The controversy over Australian land ownership erupted into the so-called "history wars". The 1992 Mabo decision overturned the doctrine of "terra nullius" in Australia. Scotland or Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Denmark–Norway all claimed sovereignty over the archipelago of Svalbard in the seventeenth century, but none permanently occupied it. Expeditions from each of these polities visited Svalbard principally during the summer for whaling, with the first two sending a few wintering parties in the 1620s and 1630s. During the 19th century, both Norway and Russia made strong claims to the archipelago. In 1909, Italian jurist Camille Piccioni described