📅 A traveller reaches rock-cut Petra (1812)
He is known as the first modern European to see Petra.
Where: Petra, Jordan
📅 On This Day: August 22
August 22, 1812: A traveller reaches rock-cut Petra. On 22 August 1812, Swiss traveller Johann Ludwig Burckhardt entered Petra, the city carved from rock in today's Jordan. Dressed as an Arab traveller, he said he wanted to offer a goat at a nearby tomb and was led through a narrow gorge.
✨ More events on this day
- 1773 🧭 French botanist and explorer Aimé Bonpland was born in 1773; he travelled through South America with Alexander von Humboldt, collecting thousands of new plants.
- 1851 🏅 The schooner America won a sailing race around England's Isle of Wight in 1851, and its silver trophy became the America's Cup, the oldest trophy in international sport.
- 1860 💡 Inventor Paul Nipkow was born in 1860; his spinning disk with holes, the Nipkow disk, was used in some of the very first television systems.
🧠 Question of the day
What did Burckhardt say he wanted to offer?
- A bunch of flowers
- A goat
- A gold crown
Show the answer
Answer: A goat
Questions
What happened on August 22?
August 22, 1812: A traveller reaches rock-cut Petra. It happened in Petra, Jordan.
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