This Day in History--August 7

On this day in 1947, a balsa wood raft, named Kon-Tiki, landed in Raroia, in the Tuamotu Archipelago, near Tahiti. The raft had floated all the way from Peru, captained by Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian anthropologist. The 4,300-mile journey took 101 days.

Why did Heyerdahl undertake it? He had a theory he wanted to test, believing that prehistoric South Americans could have drifted on ocean currents to Polynesian Islands and colonized them. This theory conflicted with current accepted scholarly opinion. It said the original settlers had arrived from Asia.

Though his theories weren't popular with the professionals, Heyerdahl's trip certainly was popular with the public. He wrote a book about the experience, Kon-Tiki, that was an international bestseller. It was translated into 65 languages. He also produced a documentary that won an Academy Award in 1951.