Christina Ritter | December 26, 2021
From left to right: Ibrahim Koma (PASSEPARTOUT), David Tennant (PHILEAS FOGG) and Leonie Benesch (ABIGAIL “FIX” FORTESCUE) in “Around the World in 80 Days”.
Our virtual passport is wide open to impossible journeys in historical drama, but for the curious, here’s a snapshot of real-life events that might have piqued the interest of a Victorian-era world traveler – and adventure writer Jules Verne himself. Before we leave our suitcases for In Packing around the world for 80 days.
The eight-part series takes place in 1872, the year Verne’s travel adventure was printed in series (Around the World in 80 Days was published as a novel in 1873). Filmed on location on two continents, the TV series follows a tour group of three people circling the world in ships, trains, balloons, camels, stagecoaches and other means.
Historical precedent for adventure stories
The French author Jules Verne based his British character Phileas Fogg on the American world traveler William Perry Fogg. Fogg’s letters describing his travels were published in a series of The Cleveland Leader newspapers entitled “Round the World: Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt” (1872).
The father of modern tourism, the Englishman Thomas Cook, organized the first world tour for tourists in 1872, which left England in September and returned seven months later. The World Heritage Foundation has documented Cook’s remarks on the heritage sites his group visited.
The United States in 1872
David Tennant (Phileas Fogg) in Around the World in 80 Days.
In the very year that takes place around the world in 80 days – 1872 – an epidemic raged from Canada to Central America, disrupting supply chains and more. It was equine flu that affected an important source of transport for people and goods in rural and urban areas. Eric Freeberg writes about this equine epidemic in Smithsonian Magazine – which also led to animal rights activism in New York City. This series ends up in the Big Apple, but horses or epidemics don’t matter.
The American Civil War has been over since 1865 and black men have had the constitutional right to vote for two years. the Amnesty Act of 1872 restores full civil rights, including the right to hold office, to most of the 150,000 former Confederate officials and leaders who fought for the secession of the United States. On Tuesday, November 5, 1872, incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant wins re-election.
The First Transcontinental Railroad in the USA was completed in 1869, Thanks to many Chinese-Americans and Chinese immigrants whose work cut the cross-trip from months to less than a week. Robberies and shootings are increasing in western states and territories; and so is the violence against Native Americans. In the 1870s, a train reached the fastest speed of 80 miles per hour, and only rarely did it go straight away. Japan inaugurated its first railroad in 1872, connecting Tokyo with Yokohama, the city on the bay to the south (now a 47-minute train ride). China did not support railroad development until the 1880s.
Almost all immigrants from Ireland, England and Europe to the USA crossed the Atlantic by steamship in 1872, a journey of about two weeks.
Two permanent resources for appreciating the world, from its nature to its arts, are launched in New York City: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Popular Science magazine.
England and elsewhere, 1872
Scene from Around the World in 80 Days.
Around the World characters Phileas Fogg and Abigail “Fix” Fortescue hail from England, where Queen Victoria stayed on the English throne in 1872 (aspects of the early reign are seen in the Masterpiece drama Victoria and reality show Victorian slum house). Your travel partner Passepartout comes from Paris, France, where the Second Empire of Emperor Napoleon III. 1871 ended with the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War. France’s new Third Republic is still recovering from war and clashes with the Paris Communist movement of the working class (we’ll see members around the world early on in this book).
Hot air balloon trips were nothing new in 1872 and the protagonists of the series will inspire them. The balloonist Charles Green traveled 800 miles from England to Germany for the adventure in 1836. The Germans and French used them for military reconnaissance during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.
The Challenger Expedition sets sail from England to establish the field of oceanography on a four-year voyage that also discovered 4,700 species of marine life.
An English Assyriologist makes the first translation of the oldest known work in literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, a poem from ancient Mesopotamia (the area of Iran, Syria and Turkey, Kuwait), which includes the journey of a king into the underworld.
The Australian Overland Telegraph Line is founded and creates the continent’s first telegraphic connection with the rest of the world.
In 1873, just over a week after travelers from Around the World in 80 Days hoped to end their voyage, Europe and North America become the The panic of 1873, a financial crisis known as the Great Depression until 1929. If travelers can make it back in time, they’d better use their $ 3 million profit wisely.
The eight-part drama In 80 days around the world will be broadcast on PBS on Sundays at 8 p.m. from January 2, 2022.
