The Humboldt University of Berlin (German: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, HU Berlin) is one of Berlin‘s oldest universities, founded on 15 October 1811 as the University of Berlin (Universität zu Berlin) by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt. The Humboldt university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities. From 1828 it was known as the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, and later (unofficially) also as the Universität unter den Linden after its location in the former palace of Prince Henry of Prussia (1726–1802) which his brother, King Frederick II, had built for him between 1748 and 1753 on the avenue Unter den Linden. read more…
Alexander von Humboldt is a German ship originally built in 1906 by the German shipyard AG Weser at Bremen as Reserve Sonderburg. She was operated throughout the North and Baltic Seas until being retired in 1986. Subsequently she was converted into a three masted barque by the German shipyard Motorwerke Bremerhaven and was re-launched in 1988 as Alexander von Humboldt. read more…
Alexander von Humboldt, 1806, painted by Friedrich Georg Weitsch
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt (September 14, 1769 – May 6, 1859) was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt’s quantitative work on botanical geography was the foundation of the field of biogeography. Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt traveled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time in a manner generally considered to be a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. He was one of the first to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Later, his five-volume work, Kosmos (1845), attempted to unify the various branches of scientific knowledge. Humboldt supported and worked with other scientists, including Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, Justus von Liebig, Louis Agassiz, Matthew Fontaine Maury, and most notably, Aimé Bonpland, with whom he conducted much of his scientific exploration. read more…
