768: Seven Seas Jan 14, 2017

The idea of sailing the Seven Seas has existed for thousands of years. Since the 19th century, it was generally agreed that what constituted the seven seas were the oceans: the Arctic Ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean, the South Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the North Pacific Ocean, the South Pacific Ocean, and the Southern (or Antarctic) Ocean. These distinctions of sections of the World Ocean are fairly arbitrary however, so people only say that to keep it withing the tradition of having seven. The first known instance of "the seven seas" dates back over 4,000 years when the Mesopotamians equated the observed celestial bodies to the number of seas. Later on references to the passage to China from the Middle East mentioned their take on the Seven Seas, which included seas, gulfs, straights, and a bay, all termed, 'sea'. Many other groups had different concepts of the Seven Seas, and it is likely that this will continue to change so long as people still use the idiom of the Seven Seas.