Los coleccionables del Museo Zumalakarregi

George Washington, 1789  the symbol of American independence, was elected the first President of the USA. His effigy on the dollar bill was passed from hand to hand all around the planet.

Birth of Tomás Zumalacárregui, witness to 1788 and participant in the difficult and violent change from the Ancien Régime to Liberalism in the Basque Country. More than 200 years later, his figure forms the cornerstone of the Zumalakarregi Museum, a reference centre for knowledge and enjoyment of the 19th century in the Basque Country.

Appearance of the first abolitionist movements against slavery in England. Abolition did not become law until 1833, but it was 1782 only five years ago, in 2001, that slavery was declared a crime against humanity.

Discovery of wolfram or tungsten. The Elhuyar brothers discovered 1783 this metal at the Bergara Seminary. This teaching centre, founded by the Royal Basque Society of Friends of the Country, followers of the ideas endorsed by the Enlightenment, educated the members of a cultured elite in favour of progress. The centre fostered high-level research in its various laboratories.

Mont-Blanc was conquered for the first time by two French mountaineers motivated by the economic reward offered by a Swiss scientist. 1786 His desire was to know the height of the cursed mountain, known at the time as: ‘the mountain everyone fears, because no one has ever reached its summit. They also fear the cold and the avalanches. There are no flowers, no stones, no grass, no vineyards. Just snow.’

The British founded 1788 Sydney with 750 convicts from the overcrowded prisons of Great Britain and the soldiers responsible for their custody. The aborigines were either driven out or killed.

Mozart presented The Abduction From The Harem, 1782 an opera that created great controversy since it was the first one to be written in German, as opposed to the traditional Italian.