| Years in Spain: | 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 |
| Centuries: | 18th century · 19th century · 20th century |
| Decades: | 1770s 1780s 1790s 1800s 1810s 1820s 1830s |
| Years: | 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 |
Events from the year 1803 in Spain
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2015) |
The members of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Spain finally returned to Spain at different times during 1803. This scientific expedition explored the flora and fauna of the territories of New Spain between 1787 and 1803. [1]
| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2015) |
| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2015) |
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. This consisted of most of the land in the Mississippi River's drainage basin west of the river. In return for fifteen million dollars, or approximately eighteen dollars per square mile, the United States nominally acquired a total of 828,000 sq mi in Middle America. However, France only controlled a small fraction of this area, most of which was inhabited by Native Americans; effectively, for the majority of the area, the United States bought the preemptive right to obtain Indian lands by treaty or by conquest, to the exclusion of other colonial powers.
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography, while his advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement pioneered modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Charles IV was King of Spain and ruler of the Spanish Empire from 1788 to 1808.
André Michaux, also styled Andrew Michaud, was a French botanist and explorer. He is most noted for his study of North American flora. In addition Michaux collected specimens in England, Spain, France, and even Persia. His work was part of a larger European effort to gather knowledge about the natural world. Michaux's contributions include Histoire des chênes de l'Amérique and Flora Boreali-Americana which continued to be botanical references well into the 19th century. His son, François André Michaux, also became an authoritative botanist.
Nicolas Thomas Baudin was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer, most notable for his explorations in Australia and the southern Pacific. He carried a few corms of Gros Michel banana from Southeast Asia, depositing them at a botanical garden on the Caribbean island of Martinique.
Jean-Baptiste Louis Claude Théodore Leschenault de La Tour was a French botanist and ornithologist.
The Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition, commonly referred to as the Balmis Expedition, was a Spanish healthcare mission that lasted from 1803 to 1806, led by Dr Francisco Javier de Balmis, which vaccinated millions of inhabitants of Spanish America and Asia against smallpox. The vaccine was actually transported through children: orphaned boys who sailed with the expedition.
Antonio José Cavanilles was a leading Spanish taxonomic botanist, artist and one of the most important figures in the 18th century period of Enlightenment in Spain.
The ideas of the Age of Enlightenment came to Spain in the 18th century with the new Bourbon dynasty, following the death of the last Habsburg monarch, Charles II, in 1700. The period of reform and 'enlightened despotism' under the eighteenth-century Bourbons focused on centralizing and modernizing the Spanish government, and improvement of infrastructure, beginning with the rule of King Charles III and the work of his minister, José Moñino, count of Floridablanca. In the political and economic sphere, the crown implemented a series of changes, collectively known as the Bourbon reforms, which were aimed at making the overseas empire more prosperous to the benefit of Spain.
Georg Heinrich Freiherr von Langsdorff was a German naturalist and explorer, as well as a Russian diplomat, better known by his Russian name, Grigori Ivanovich Langsdorf.
Martín Sessé y Lacasta was a Spanish botanist, who relocated to New Spain during the 18th century to study and classify the flora of the territory. The standard author abbreviation Sessé is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid is an 8 hectares botanical garden in Madrid (Spain). The public entrance is located at Plaza de Murillo, next to the Prado Museum.
José Celestino Bruno Mutis y Bosio was a Spanish priest, botanist and mathematician. He was a significant figure in the Spanish American Enlightenment, whom Alexander von Humboldt met with on his expedition to Spanish America. He is one of the most important authors of the Spanish Universalist School of the 18th century, together with Juan Andrés or Antonio Eximeno.
Hipólito Ruiz López, or Hipólito Ruiz, was a Spanish botanist known for researching the floras of Peru and Chile during an expedition under Carlos III from 1777 to 1788. During the reign of Carlos III, three major botanical expeditions were sent to the New World; Ruiz and José Antonio Pavón Jiménez were the botanists for the first of these expeditions, to Peru and Chile.
The Baudin expedition of 1800 to 1803 was a French expedition to map the coast of New Holland. Nicolas Baudin was selected as leader in October 1800. The expedition started with two ships, Géographe, captained by Baudin, and Naturaliste captained by Jacques Hamelin, and was accompanied by nine zoologists and botanists, including Jean-Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour, François Péron and Charles-Alexandre Lesueur as well as the geographer Pierre Faure.
José Mariano Mociño Suárez Lozano, or simply José Mariano Mociño, was a naturalist from Mexico.
José Antonio Pavón Jiménez or José Antonio Pavón was a Spanish botanist known for researching the flora of Peru and Chile.
Atanasio Echeverría y Godoy was an 18th-century Mexican botanical artist and naturalist who trained at the Royal Art Academy in Mexico. The genus Echeveria was named in his honour by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle.
Juan Francisco Antonio Hilarión Zea Díaz was a Neogranadine journalist, botanist, diplomat, politician, and statesman who served as Vice President of Colombia under then President Simón Bolívar. He was also Ambassador of Colombia to the United Kingdom where he tried in vain to gain recognition for the nascent nation of Colombia.
The Royal Botanical Expedition to New Spain was a scientific expedition to survey the flora and fauna of the territories of New Spain between 1787 and 1803 and to establish a botanical garden. It was sponsored by King Charles III of Spain and headed by physician Martín Sessé y Lacasta, who led a team of botanists that included José Mariano Mociño and is part of the crown's general program of economic revitalization, known as the Bourbon Reforms. The expedition, commonly referred to by botanists as the Sessé and Mociño expedition, identified many species new to science and brought back a large trove of valuable botanical illustrations. The expedition was "an undertaking that was to signal Spain's reassertion of its colonial might and of its relevance to the Enlightenment."
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