Joshua Slocum begins a a solo, around-the-world voyage in East Boston.

The Nova Scotia-born, Boston-raised sailor departs on his 37-foot sloop Spray. After crossing the Atlantic, fear of pirates in the Mediterranean prompts him to sail back to South America, through the Straights of Magellan, across the Pacific and around the Cape of Good Hope, and back across the Atlantic again. He becomes the first person to sail alone around the world when he arrives back at Newport, Rhode Island, on June 27, 1898.