Joining the tribe

A man gets a tribal tattoo at a tattoo parlour in Warsaw, Poland. The word "tattoo" entered Western languages in 1769, when British naturalist Joseph Banks described what he'd observed in a faraway place.

Banks was travelling on the HMS Endeavour with Captain James Cook on an expedition to the South Pacific. The expedition had the goal of finding a mythical southern continent and claiming it for Britain.

Along the way, the expedition reached New Zealand, Australia and various major islands in the Pacific, including Samoa. It was on Samoa that Banks heard the word tatau or tatu. In his journal, he described how Samoans would "mark themselves indelibly". Some of the sailors on the expedition had themselves tattooed, which inspired other sailors in Europe to do the same.

Although tattooing was done in Europe thousands of years ago, its current popularity dates back to the exact year of 1769.

When spelling the word in English, remember: There are two t's in the middle of "tattoo".