Around the World in 72 Days

On November 14, 1889, two years after her sensational exposé on the conditions in a psychiatric institution in New York, "Ten Days in a Mad-House," star journalist Nellie Bly sets off to circumnavigate the globe in record time. The 25-year-old is equipped only with a custom-made travel dress, a coat, and a handbag. Nellie Bly deviates from her route only once to meet the novelist Jules Verne in Amiens, France, whose fictional record she will surpass by eight days. Bly's journey around the world in 72 days becomes the journalistic coup of the year and the highlight of her career. Her report, published in New York in 1890, offers a rare glimpse into the early history of globalized tourism and the technological exploration of the world, but it also serves as a testament to colonial megalomania.