Reporter Nellie Bly set off to beat Around the World in 80 Days
On this day · 14 November 1889
On November 14, 1889, a young journalist sailed from Hoboken to outrace a fictional traveler — and circled the globe in 72 days.
On the morning of November 14, 1889, reporter Nellie Bly — pen name of Elizabeth Cochrane — boarded the liner Augusta Victoria at Hoboken, New Jersey, and steamed out into the Atlantic. Her goal, dreamed up for the New York World, was to beat the fictional 80-day journey of Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg.
She traveled with a single bag, packing light enough to move fast. Crossing Europe, the Suez Canal, Asia, and the Pacific, she filed dispatches as readers at home followed a newspaper contest guessing her finishing time.
She rolled back into Jersey City on January 25, 1890 — a circuit of the globe in 72 days, 6 hours, and 11 minutes.
The stunt set a real-world circumnavigation record and cemented Bly as a pioneer of daring, immersive journalism at a time when few women held bylines at all.
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