The 1769 transit of venus is fascinating.

It's the first time the international community joined together to combine in a scientific experiment.

The idea was that if numerous explorers/scientists at many different areas of the earth record the time/trajectory of the transit of venus, they could calculate exactly how far away from the earth the sun was.

The experiment worked and they came to what we now know was very accurate results.

Captain Cook was one of the explorers recording it on the newly discovered Hawaiian islands.