biography
| name: |
Bougainville, Louis Antoine, comte de (Count of)
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pronunciation:
[booganveel]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1729–1811)
|
| biography:
| Navigator, mathematician, and French soldier, born in Paris, France. He studied law and then mathematics, publishing an important treatise on integral calculus. Entering the French navy in 1763, he was responsible for colonizing the Falkland Is for France, and for their transfer to Spain. In command of the ships La Boudeuse and L'Etoile, he accomplished the first French circumnavigation of the world (1766–9), which he described in his Voyage autour du monde (1771, A Voyage round the World). The largest of the Solomon Is is named after him, as is the plant bougainvillaea. After the outbreak of the Revolution he devoted himself solely to scientific pursuits. Napoleon I made him a senator, count of the empire, and member of the Légion d'Honneur. |
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