Famous explorers

1. 15 Famous Explorers Who
Changed the World

2.  The story of human exploration is as old as
the story of civilisation, and many of the
stories of these explorers have become
legends over the centuries.

4. 1. MARCO POLO (1254-1324)
A VENETIAN MERCHANT AND ADVENTURER, MARCO POLO TRAVELLED ALONG THE
SILK ROAD FROM EUROPE TO ASIA BETWEEN 1271 AND 1295.
 Originally invited to the court of Kublai Khan (1215-1294)
with his father and uncle, he remained in China for 17
years where the Mongol ruler sent him on fact-finding
missions to distant parts of the empire. Upon his return to
Venice, Polo was imprisoned in Genoa alongside the
writer Rustichello da Pisa. The result of their encounter
was Il milione (“The Million”) or ‘The Travels of Marco
Polo’, which described his voyage to and experiences in
Asia. Polo was not the first European to reach China, but
his travelogue inspired many explorers – among them,
Christopher Columbus.
 His writings also had a significant influence on European
cartography, ultimately leading to the Age of Discovery a
century later.

5.  Henry the Navigator (1394-1460)
 The Portuguese prince has a legendary status in the early
stages of European exploration – despite never having
embarked on an exploratory voyage himself.
 His patronage of Portuguese exploration led to
expeditions across the Atlantic Ocean and along the
western coast of Africa, and the colonising of the Azores
and Madeira islands.
 Although he did not earn the title ‘”the Navigator” until
three centuries after his death, Henry was considered the
main initiator of the Age of Discovery and the Atlantic
slave trade.


6.  Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)
 Often called the “discoverer” of the New World, Christopher
Columbus embarked on 4 voyages across the Atlantic Ocean
between 1492 and 1504.
 Under the sponsorship of Ferdinand II and Isabella I of Spain, he
had originally set sail hoping to find a westward route to the Far
East.
 Instead, the Italian navigator found himself on an island that later
became known as the Bahamas. Believing he had reached the
Indies, he dubbed the natives there “Indians”. Columbus’ voyages
were the first European expeditions to the Caribbean, Central
America and South America, and opened the way for the
European exploration and permanent colonisation of the
Americas.

7. VASCO DA GAMA (C. 1460-1524)
 In 1497, the Portuguese explorer set sail from Lisbon
towards India. His voyage made him the first European to
reach India by sea, and opened up the first sea route
connecting Europe to Asia. Da Gama’s discovery of the
Cape Route opened the way for an age of Portuguese
exploration and colonialism in Asia.
 It would take another century for other European powers
to challenge Portugal’s naval supremacy and commercial
monopoly of commodities such as pepper and cinnamon.
 The Portuguese national epic poem, Os Lusiadas (“The
Lusiads”), was written in his honour by Luís Vaz de
Camões (c. 1524-1580), Portugal’s greatest ever poet.

8. AMERIGO VESPUCCI (1454-1512)
 Around 1501-1502, the Florentine navigator
Amerigo Vespucci embarked on a follow-up
expedition to Cabral’s, exploring the Brazilian
coast. As a result of this voyage, Vespucci
demonstrated that Brazil and the West Indies
were not the eastern outskirts of Asia – as
Columbus had thought – but a separate
continent, which became described as the
“New World”.

9. FERDINAND MAGELLAN (1480-1521)
 The Portuguese explorer was the first European to cross
the Pacific Ocean, and organised the Spanish expedition
to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522.
 Despite rough weather, and a mutinous and starving crew
riddled with scurvy, Magellan and his ships managed to
reach an island – probably Guam – in the western Pacific.
 In 1521, Magellan was killed after reaching the
Philippines, when he was caught in a battle between two
rival chieftains.
 The expedition, begun by Magellan but completed by
Juan Sebastián Elcano, resulted in the first
circumnavigation of the earth.

10. SIR FRANCIS DRAKE (C.1540-1596)
 Drake was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe in a
single expedition from 1577 to 1580. In his youth, he commanded
a ship as part of a fleet bringing African slaves to the “New
World”, making one of the first English slaving voyages. Later, he
was secretly commissioned by Elizabeth I to set off an expedition
against the colonies of the Spanish empire – the most powerful in
the world at the time. Aboard his flagship ‘the Pelican’ – later
renamed ‘the Golden Hind’ – Drake made his way into the Pacific,
up the coast of South America, across the Indian Ocean and back
into the Atlantic.
 After two years of plundering, pirating and adventuring, he sailed
his ship into Plymouth Harbour on 26 September 1580. He was
knighted by the Queen personally aboard his ship 7 months later.


11. JAMES COOK (1728-1779)
 A British Royal Navy captain, James Cook embarked
on ground-breaking expeditions that helped map the
Pacific, New Zealand and Australia.
 In 1770, he made the first European contact with the
eastern coast of Australia, and chartered several
islands in the Pacific.
 Using a combination of seamanship, navigation and
cartographic skills, Cook radically expanded and
changed European perceptions of world geography.


12. ROALD AMUNDSEN (1872-1928)
 The Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen was the first to
reach the South Pole, during an Antarctic expedition of 1910-
1912.
 He was also the first to sail through the Arctic’s treacherous
Northwest Passage, from 1903 to 1906.
 Amundsen had planned to be the first man to the North Pole. On
hearing that the American Robert Peary had achieved the feat,
Amundsen decided to change course and instead set sail for
Antarctica.
On 14 December 1911 and with the help of sleigh dogs,
Amundsen reached the South Pole, beating his British rival
Robert Falcon Scott.
 In 1926, he led the first flight over the North Pole in a dirigible. He
died two years later trying to rescue a fellow explorer who had
crashed at sea near Spitsbergen, Norway.