The Kon-Tiki expeditions was project by Tor Heyerdal with the aim to prove that South Americans could have settled in Polynesia. Heyerdal therefore built a raft with the materials which would have been available at the time and sat sail from Peru on this day in 1947. Heyerdal and his five man crew (+ a parrot) sailed the raft for 101 days over 6900km before it crashed into a reef on Tuamotu Island. The raft was built of 9 trunks of Balsa threes. The float carried 1040 liter fresh water which was carried in both modern plastic dunks, but also in balsa three dunks to prove that the South Americans could also have brought water. The raft and the expedition was named Kon-Tiki after the Inca Sun God. Heyerdal made a documentary about the expedition which won an academy award in 1951 (Kon Tiki
1951). He also wrote a book about his expedition (Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft
). A modern, dramatized feature film was made about the expedition in 2012. We highly recommend this movie if you are looking for some light history-related entertainment (Kon-Tiki
2012). The raft is today on display in Oslo. Thor Heyerdal died in 2002. Knut Haugland, the last living member of the crew, died in 2009.
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