Captain James Cook was a famous British explorer who made three voyages of discovery, finding Australia and the Hawaiian Islands for the first time. He was born in 1728 in Yorkshire, UK and had his first job working for his father on a farm until becoming an apprentice in a grocery store at age 16. His first voyage from 1768-1771 was on the Endeavor, where he landed on the eastern coast of Australia and circumnavigated New Zealand. His second voyage from 1772-1775 was to the Pacific on the Resolution. Cook had many landmarks and places named after him and died in 1779 after being stabbed in Hawaii.