The War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802)…

The Russian-America Company is founded in 1799 with its base at Okhotsk, bringing in more money to the region.

Over one hundred private fur trading and hunting voyages have sailed from Kamchatka to North America from 1743 to the founding of the Russian-American Company in 1799.

In total, these voyages garner over eight million silver rubles.

Heshen, who had only gained his position because he was the Emperor's favorite, is known to have embezzled funds and resources earmarked for the defeat of the White Lotus; this accounted for his defeat.

The Jiaqing Emperor, on assuming effective power in 1799, overthrows the Heshen clique and, as a way of restoring discipline and morale, gives support to the efforts of the more vigorous Manchu commanders in suppressing the White Lotus Rebellion.

A systematic program of pacification follows, in which the populace is resettled in hundreds of stockaded villages and organized into militia.

Friedrich von Schlegel extols free love in his experimental (and only) novel of 1799, Lucinde, which earns him notoriety.

The defeat of Tipu Sahib in 1799 ends nearly four decades of conflict between Mysore and the British.

Mysore accepts a subsidiary alliance and cedes Coimbatore to Great Britain.

Switzerland becomes a virtual battle-zone between the French, Austrian and Imperial Russian armies in 1799, with the locals supporting mainly the latter two, rejecting calls to fight with the French armies in the name of the Helvetic Republic.

Alexander von Humboldt has devoted his talents to the purpose of preparing himself as a scientific explorer.

With this emphasis, he has studied commerce and foreign languages at Hamburg, geology at Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg under A. G. Werner, anatomy at Jena under J. C. Loder and astronomy and the use of scientific instruments under F. X. von Zach and J. G. Köhler.

His researches into the vegetation of the mines of Freiberg had led to the publication, in 1793, of his Florae Fribergensis Specimen.

Long experimentation on muscular irritability, then recently discovered by Luigi Galvani, are contained in his Versuche über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser (Berlin, 1797) (Experiments on the Frayed Muscle and Nerve Fibres), enriched in the French translation with notes by Blumenbach.

In 1794, Humboldt had gained admission to the famous Weimar coterie and had contributed (June 7, 1795) to Schiller's new periodical, Die Horen, a philosophical allegory entitled Die Lebenskraft, oder der rhodische Genius.

In 1792 and 1797 he was in Vienna; in 1795 he had made a geological and botanical tour through Switzerland and Italy.

He had obtained in the meantime official employment by appointment as assessor of mines at Berlin, February 29, 1792.

Although this service to the state is regarded by him as only an apprenticeship to the service of science, he has fulfilled its duties with such conspicuous ability that not only has he risen rapidly to the highest post in his department, but he has also been entrusted with several important diplomatic missions.

The death of his mother, on November 19, 1796, and a consequent large inheritance, sets him free to follow the bent of his genius, and severing his official connections, he waits for an opportunity to fulfill his long-cherished dream of travel.

In 1799, after obtaining permission from the Spanish government, Humboldt and the French botanist Aime Bonpland sail from Marseille to Spanish colonial lands in South America.