- Marco Polo
Marco Polo (September 15 1254 - January 9 1324 at earliest but no later than June 1325) was a Venetian trader and explorer who gained fame for his worldwide travels, recorded in the book "Il Milione" ("The Million" or "The Travels of Marco Polo"). Polo, together with his father Niccolò and his uncle Maffeo, was one of the first Westerners to travel the Silk Road to China (which was then called "Cathay") and visit the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, … - Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus (Genoa?, 1451 - May 20, 1506, Valladolid, Spain) was a navigator and colonialist who is one of several historical figures credited as the first European to discover the Americas. Though likely not the first to reach the Americas from Europe, it was Columbus' voyages that lead to general European awareness of the hemisphere and the successful establishment of European cultures in the New World. It is generally believed that he was born in Genoa, … - Benedict Allen
Benedict Colin Allen is a British explorer. He is best known for his survival "modus operandi": tapping into local, indigenous knowledge above reliance on modern inventions. His approach is to present himself as ready to learn, like an infant; the communities that he visits take him under their wing, equipping him with the necessary skills. It is not always the adults but sometimes the children that ‘adopt’ and teach him. - James Cook
Captain James Cook FRS RN (27 October 1728 (O.S.) – 14 February 1779) was an English explorer, navigator and cartographer. Ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy, Cook was the first to map Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean during which he achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia, the European discovery of the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand. - Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., also known as T.R. and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States, and a leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Movement, as well as being the youngest President in United States history, at age 42. He served in many roles including Governor of New York, historian, naturalist, explorer, author, and soldier. - Edmund Hillary
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, KG, ONZ, KBE (born 20 July 1919) is a New Zealand mountaineer and explorer. Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay were the first people to climb to the summit of Mount Everest and return safely - a feat they achieved on 29 May 1953. They were taking part in the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt. - Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral, (c. 1540 - January 27 1596) was an English privateer, navigator, slave trader, politician and civil engineer of the Elizabethan era. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He died of dysentery after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1596. His exploits were semi-legendary and made him a hero to the English but to the Spaniards he was equated with the devil. - Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain , the "father of New France," was born between 1567 and 1570 in the town of Brouage, a seaport on France's west coast and died in 1635. A sailor, he also came to be respected as a talented navigator, mapmaker, and founder of Quebec City. He was also integral in opening North America up to French trade, especially the fur trade. His influence is still felt in the presence of French Canadians in Quebec, where he did most of his exploring. - Vasco da Gama
Dom Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira ((Sines or Vidigueira, Alentejo, Portugal, ca. either 1460 or 1469 - December 24, 1524 in Kochi, India) was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the European Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India. - Jacques Cartier
Jacques Cartier (December 31, 1491 - September 1 1557) was a French navigator who first explored and described the Gulf of St-Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named Canada. - Ernest Shackleton
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton CVO, OBE (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Irish explorer, knighted for the success of the "British Antarctic Expedition" (1907 - 09) under his command, but now chiefly remembered for his Antarctic expedition of 1914-1916 in the ship "Endurance", which is colloquially known as "Shackleton's Expedition" or "The Shackleton Expedition". Along with Roald Amundsen, Douglas Mawson, and Robert Falcon Scott, … - John Muir
John Muir was one of the first modern preservationists. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, and wildlife, especially in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, were read by millions and are still popular today. His direct activism helped to save the Yosemite Valley and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is now one of the most important conservation organizations in the United States. - Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first successful Antarctic expedition to the South Pole between 1910 and 1912. He disappeared in June 1928 while taking part in a rescue mission. With Douglas Mawson, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton, Amundsen was a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. - David Livingstone
David Livingstone (19 March 1813 - 4 May 1873) was a Scottish Presbyterian pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and explorer in central Africa. He was the first European to see Victoria Falls, which he named in honour of the reigning monarch. He is the subject of the meeting with H. M. Stanley, which gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr Livingstone, I presume?" - Alexander von Humboldt
(September 14, 1769, Berlin – May 6, 1859, Berlin) was a Prussian naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt. Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography was foundational to the field of biogeography. Between 1799 and 1804, von Humboldt travelled to Latin America, exploring and describing it from a scientific point of view for the first time. - Simon Fraser
Simon Fraser (1776-18 August 1862) was a fur trader and an explorer who charted much of what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia. Fraser was employed by the Montreal-based North West Company and by 1805 had been put in charge of all the company's operations west of the Rocky Mountains. He was responsible for building that area's first trading posts, and in 1808 he explored what is now known as the Fraser River, which bears his name. - Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone (October 22, 1734 - September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and hunter whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the U.S. state of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. Despite resistance from American Indians, for whom Kentucky was a traditional hunting ground, … - Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan ; Spring 1480-April 27, 1521, Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines) was a Portuguese-born maritime explorer who, at the service of Spain, attempted to find a westward route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. This voyage became known as the first successful attempt at world circumnavigation. He did not complete his final westward voyage; he was killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines. As he died farther west than the Spice Islands, … - Henry Hudson
Henry Hudson (September 12, 1570s - 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century. His place of birth was London, England. He is presumed to have died in 1611 in Hudson Bay, Canada, after he was set adrift, along with his son and eight others, by mutinous crewmen. Hudson's early life is an unknown, but he is thought to have spent many years at sea. He is said to have begun as a cabin boy at 16 and gradually worked his way up to ship's captain. - Amerigo Vespucci
'Amerigo Vespucci (March 9, 1454 -February 22, 1512) was an Italian merchant, explorer and cartographer. He played a senior role in two voyages which explored the east coast of South America between 1499 and 1502. On the second of these voyages he discovered that South America extended much further south than previously known by Europeans. This convinced him that this land was part of a new continent, … - William Clark
William Clark (August 1, 1770 - September 1, 1838) was an American explorer who accompanied Meriwether Lewis on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. William Clark was born in Caroline, Virginia on August 1, 1770. He was the second-youngest of the ten children born to John and Ann Rogers Clark. When the Revolutionary War began, William Clark was the only male member of his family who did not go off to battle, as he was too young. When he was 12 he entered the Continental Army. - Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh (1552 or 1554 – 29 October, 1618), was a famed English writer, poet, courtier and explorer. He was responsible for establishing the first English colony in the New World, on June 4, 1584, at Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina. When the settlement failed, the ultimate fate of the colonists was never authoritatively ascertained, and it became known as "The Lost Colony". - John Cabot
Giovanni Caboto (c. 1450 - c.1498), known in English as John Cabot, and in French as Jean Cabot, was a Genoese navigator and explorer commonly credited as one of the first early modern Europeans to land on the North American mainland, aboard the "Matthew" in 1497. - John Franklin
Rear Admiral Sir John Franklin FRGS (April 15, 1786 - June 11, 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer who mapped almost two thirds of the northern coastline of North America and whose last expedition disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate a section of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic. The entire crew perished from starvation and exposure after Franklin died and the expedition's icebound ships were abandoned in desperation. - Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774 - October 11, 1809) was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Corps of Discovery, whose mission was to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase. - John Murray
Sir John Murray KCB (3 March 1841 – 6 March 1914) was a pioneering Scots-Canadian oceanographer and marine biologist. Murray was born at Cobourg, Ontario, Canada, to Scottish parents who had emigrated seven years earlier. He returned to Scotland to study, firstly at Stirling High School, and then at the University of Edinburgh, but soon left to join a whaling expedition to Spitsbergen as ships' surgeon in 1868. - David Thompson
David Thompson (April 30, 1770 - February 10, 1857), was an English-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, known to some native peoples as "the Stargazer". Over his career he mapped over 3.9 million square kilometres of North America and for this has been described as the "greatest land geographer who ever lived." - Abel Tasman
Abel Janszoon Tasman (1603 - October 10 1659), was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant. He is best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC (Dutch East India Company). His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and New Zealand and to sight the Fiji islands, which he did in 1643. Tasman, his navigator Visscher, and his Merchant Gilsemans also mapped substantial portions of Australia, … - Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto (c.1496/1497 –May 21, 1542) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador. Born in the Extremadura region of Spain, he participated, in his late teens, in the conquest of Central America at the side of Governor Pedrarias Dávila. He joined Francisco Pizarro in the early 1530's conquest of South America, and he became enormously wealthy from his share of the Incan booty. In 1539, De Soto launched the largest of the early Spanish colonial expeditions. - John Marshall
John Marshall was born in Ramsgate, Kent, England on February 15, 1748. Having been bound apprentice at the age of ten he spent his life at sea. In 1788 he captained the "Scarborough", a ship of the First Fleet taking convicts from England to Botany Bay. He then sailed from Australia to China, charting previously unknown islands, as well as a new trade route to Canton (now Guangzhou). - John Richardson
Sir John Richardson (November 5, 1787 - June 5, 1865) was a Scottish naval surgeon, naturalist and arctic explorer. Richardson was born at Dumfries. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, and became a surgeon in the navy in 1807. He travelled with John Franklin between 1819 and 1822 in search of the Northwest Passage. Richardson wrote the sections on geology, botany and icthyology for the official account of the expedition. - John Wood
John Wood (1812 - November 14, 1871) was a Scottish naval officer, surveyor, cartographer and explorer, principally remembered for his exploration of central Asia. Wood was born in Perth, Scotland. After schooling at Perth Academy, he joined the British Indian Navy and soon demonstrated a flair for surveying. Many of the maps of southern Asia which he compiled remained standard for the rest of the nineteenth century. - Robert Falcon Scott
Captain Robert Falcon Scott, CVO, RN, (6 June 1868 - 29 March 1912) was a Royal Naval officer and Antarctic explorer. In the so-called "Race to the South Pole" Scott came second, behind the Norwegian Roald Amundsen; he and his four companions died whilst trying to return to their base. Scott has become the most famous, and tragic, hero of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. - Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen (born October 10, 1861 in Store Frøen, near Christiania - died May 13, 1930 in Lysaker, outside Oslo) was a Norwegian explorer, scientist and diplomat. Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for his work as a League of Nations High Commissioner. - John Stuart
John Stuart (12 September 1780 - 14 January 1847) was a nineteenth century Canadian fur trader and explorer, employed by the North West Company. Stuart is best known as one of the two clerks (the other being James McDougall) who participated in Simon Fraser's explorations of present-day British Columbia, Canada from 1805 to 1808. After Fraser returned to his work in the Athabaska Department in 1809, … - Juan de Fuca
Juan de Fuca (born 1536 as Ioannis Phokas in Kefalonia, Greece; died 1602 in Zákynthos, Greece, often reported as Apostolos Valerianos), was a Greek captain employed by Spain to sail northward from Mexico and look for a northern passage from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. In 1592, his exploration took him into the body of water, the Strait of Juan de Fuca (since 1788 named after him). - Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl (October 6, 1914 Larvik, Norway - April 18, 2002 Colla Micheri, Italy) was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer with a scientific background in zoology and geography. Heyerdahl became famous for his Kon-Tiki Expedition in which he sailed by raft 4,300 miles (7,000 km) from South America to the Tuamotu Islands. - Robert Peary
Robert Edwin Peary (May 6, 1856 - February 20, 1920) was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person, on April 6, 1909, to reach the geographic North Pole Peary was born in the Pittsburgh area town of Cresson, Pennsylvania. He moved to Maine, attended Portland High School, was a graduate of Bowdoin College, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He was commissioned a Lieutenant in the United States Navy October 26, 1881. - Matthew Henson
Matthew Alexander Henson (August 8 1866 - March 9, 1955) was an American explorer and long-time companion to Robert Peary; amongst various expeditions, their most famous was a 1909 expedition which claimed to be the first to reach the Geographic North Pole. A black American and an employee of Peary's (who was notoriously difficult with his charges), Henson did not achieve contemporary recognition in an America where racist views were still common. - John King
John King (15 December 1838-15 January 1872) was an Irish soldier who achieved fame as an Australian explorer. He was the sole survivor of the four men from the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition who reached the Gulf of Carpentaria. The Burke and Wills expedition was the first expedition to cross Australia from south to north, finding a route across the continent from the settled areas of Victoria to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
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