Famous Firsts

Slide 1: Famous Firsts: Explorers to Extreme Sportsman Outdoor Culture and Technology The Walker School

Slide 2: Leif Eriksson  Born c. 970 – Died c. 1020  Icelandic explorer and the first European thought to have landed in North America in Newfoundland in 1000 A.D.

Slide 3: Martin Behaim  Born on October 6th, 1459 - Died July 29th, 1507.  Created the first globe (or model of the Earth) in 1492.  He was living at Fayal in the Azores.

Slide 4: Vasco Nunez de Balboa  Born 1475 - Died January 15th, 1519.  Credited with being the first European to lead an expedition known to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World in 1513.

Slide 5: Ferdinand Magellan  Born in Spring 1480 – Died April 27th, 1521.  This was the first known successful attempt to circumnavigate the Earth.

Slide 6: Charles Marie de la Condamine  Born Jan. 28th, 1701 - Died Feb. 4th, 1774  He was a French mathematician, physicist, explorer, and geographer.  Set out to measure the earth at the equator. Significantly explored and mapped the Amazon in 1735.

Slide 7: Daniel Boone  Born October or November 22nd 1734 – September 26th, 1820th.  Credited as an American pioneer and hunter. Discovered much of Kentucky and other land west of the 13 colonies.  1775 Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky

Slide 8: Captain James Cook  October 27, 1728 - February 14, 1779  Cook was the first ship's captain to stop the disease scurvy (now known to be caused by a lack of vitamin C) among sailors by providing them with fresh fruits.  First European to land on New Zealand and Hawaii

Slide 9: Dr. / Sir Gilbert Blane  Born August 29th, 1749 – Died June 26th,1834  Blane did much to improve the health of sailors by heeding their diet and enforcing due sanitary precautions. Largely due to his advocacy, the entire navy in 1795 made the use of lime juice obligatory to prevent scurvy.

Slide 10: Matthew Flinders  Born16 March1774 – Died19 July 1814  Famous for circumnavigating Australia  He circumnavigated between December 1801 and June 1803

Slide 11: Sacajawea  Born c. 1787 – Died December 20, 1812  Guided Lewis and Clark to the Pacific  United States  1804 and 1806

Slide 12: Alexander von Humboldt  1769-1859  Credited with developing the first isotherm map, containing lines of equal average temperatures, in early 1800’s

Slide 13: John Franklin  Born April 15, 1786 and died June 11, 1847.  Made trips to the Arctic.  Credited with proving the existence of a northwest passage from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific ocean.  His first Arctic expedition was in 1819.

Slide 14: David Livingston  Born19 March 1813 – Died1 May 1873  Credited with discovering Victoria Falls and mapped out much of Africa  In Central Africa  Discovered it in 1855

Slide 15: John Wesley Powell  Born March 24, 1834 – Died September 23rd,1892  First to explore Colorado River and Green rivers in Utah and Arizona in 1869.

Slide 16: James Holman  Born October 15th, 1786 – Died July 29th, 1857  Credited with having traveled over 250,000 miles and the most countries of any other man.  He was also blind.

Slide 17: Louis-Sébastien Lenormand  Born May 25, 1757 – Died December 1837  A French physicist, inventor and pioneer in parachuting  In 1783, Louis-Sébastien Lenormand made the first parachute jump from the tower of the Montpellier observatory.

Slide 18: Matthew Flinders  Born March 16th, 1774 – Died July 19th, 1814.  Credited with identifying and correcting the effect of iron components and equipment on board wooden ships upon compass readings.

Slide 19: Mary Kingsley  Born October 13,th 1862 - Died June 3rd, 1900.  Her first trip to Africa was in 1893.  The first European Women to enter remote parts of Gabon.  She greatly influenced European ideas about Africa and its people.

Slide 20: Sir Henry Morton Stanley  Born January 28th, 1841 – Died May 10, 1904  First to complete traversal of Africa

Slide 21: Ronald Amundsen  Born July 16, 1872 – Died June 1928  First person to successfully navigate the fabled Northwest passage (1905)  First person to reach the South Pole (1911)  First person to fly over the North Pole

Slide 22: Robert Edwin Peary  Born May 6th, 1856 – Died February 20th, 1920  Credited with the European discovery Credited with discovering Cape Jesup at the north tip of Greenland, the northernmost land on earth.

Slide 23: Geoffrey Winthrop Young  Born 1876 – Died1958  Known climber.  Credited with starting the extreme sport of urban climbing by climbing on roofs for sport in 1890.

Slide 24: Frederick Albert Cook  Born on June 10th, 1865 – Died on August 5, 1940  Dr. Cook was a founding member of two New York-based clubs: the Arctic Club (1894-1913) and The Explorers Club (1904-present)

Slide 25: Charles Lindbergh  Born February 4, 1902 - Died August 26, 1974  Flew the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris. On May 20, 1927.

Slide 26: Benton MacKaye  Born March 6th,1879 - Died December 11th, 1975  First passionate and persistent advocate and visionary of the Appalachian Trail

Slide 27: Earl V. Shaffer  First to hike the AT from end to end in 1948.

Slide 28: Sir Edmund Percival Hillary  Born July 20th 1919 – Died January 11th, 2008  First man to summit Everest in Nepal on the 29th of May1953.

Slide 29: Jacques Piccard  Born July 28, 1922  Explorer and Engineer who studied ocean currents.  First to reach the ocean floor in the Deep Challenger on January 23, 1960.

Slide 30: Yuri Gagrin  Born on March 9, 1934 - Died on March 27, 1968.  First man in space, and he became the first human to orbit the earth on April 12, 1961 .  He was a Russian astronaut

Slide 31: Neil Armstrong  Born on born August 5th, 1930.  He is the first person to have set foot on the Moon in 1969.

Slide 32: Sir Ranulph Fiennes  Born March 7, 1944.  In 1982 Fiennes led the first polar circumnavigation of the Earth.  He and a friend also made the first unsupported walk across the continent of Antarctica, each man dragging a 500-pound sledge. The 97 day trip is the longest polar journey in history.

Slide 33: Patrick de Gayardon  Born January 23rd, 1960 – Died April 13th,1998  He was one of the first persons to develop the unique style of sky surfing in the late 1980s.

Slide 34: Philippe Jeantot  Achieved recognition as a sailor for long-distance, single-handed racing and record-setting.  He founded the Vendée Globe, a single-handed, round-the-world, non-stop yacht race.

Slide 35: Reinhold Messner  Born September 17, 1944.  First person to climb all fourteen eight-thousand foot peaks.

Slide 36: Laird Hamilton  Born on March 2, 1964.  Credited with starting tow-in surfing in 1992 at the North Shore in Hawaii with friends Darrick Doerner and Buzzy Kerbox.

Slide 37: Jason Lee  Developed the Mountain Board and the sport of Mountain Boarding in 1993.

Slide 38: Sue Hendrickson  Born December 2, 1949. She is still alive.  Found the largest T Rex fossil. This was found in South Dakota in 1990.

Slide 39: Kit DesLauriers  Born January 25, 1965.  First person to successfully ski all seven summits (the highest peak on each of the seven continents).  She also becomes the first American and first woman to ski from the Everest summit.