Explorers
Extraordinary 1915 Photos from Ernest Shackleton’s Disastrous Antarctic Expedition
When photographer Frank Hurley signed on to document British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to the South Pole in 1914, he knew he’d be capturing some of the earliest images of Antarctica’s bleak and beautiful unexplored terrain. But after Shackleton’s ship, HMS ...read more
The Stunning Survival Story of Ernest Shackleton and His Endurance Crew
All year, the ship had been trapped, the ice pushing and pinching the hull, the wood howling in protest. Finally, on October 27, 1915, a new wave of pressure rippled across the ice, lifting the ship’s stern and tearing off its rudder and its keel. Freezing water began to rush in. ...read more
Why Sir Walter Raleigh Was Beheaded
He was a celebrated soldier, a hero on land and sea. He was responsible for the first ever English colonies in the New World. And he wrote poetry that ranks with some of the finest in early modern England. Yet at the age of 66 Sir Walter Raleigh was executed for treason. What ...read more
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th century to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, ...read more
The Untold Story of How an Escaped Slave Helped Sir Francis Drake Circumnavigate the Globe
Diego ran headlong through the gunfire toward the boats on the beach. “Are you Captain Drake’s?” he cried. He had to get on board. He had heard there were no slaves in England, and if he joined the English they might take him there. He knew some of their countrymen traded in ...read more
Why Moroccan Scholar Ibn Battuta May Be the Greatest Explorer of all Time
The title of “history’s most famous traveler” usually goes to Marco Polo, the great Venetian wayfarer who visited China in the 13th century. For sheer distance covered, however, Polo trails far behind the Muslim scholar Ibn Battuta. Though little known outside the Islamic world, ...read more
The Treacherous Race to the South Pole
“Another hard grind in the afternoon and five miles added,” British explorer Robert Falcon Scott wrote in his diary. “Our chance still holds good if we can put the work in, but it’s a terribly trying time.” It was mid-January 1912, and the 43-year-old Royal Navy officer was ...read more
When Stanley Met Livingstone
On March 21, 1871, Henry Morton Stanley set out from the African port of Bagamoyo on what he hoped would be a career-making adventure. The 30-year-old journalist had arrived on the “Dark Continent” at the behest of the New York Herald newspaper, yet he wasn’t chasing any ordinary ...read more
The Enduring Mystery Behind Percy Fawcett’s Disappearance
With his steely blue eyes, manicured beard and trademark Stetson hat, Colonel Percy Fawcett looked like the quintessential swashbuckling adventurer. His resume included a stint as a British artilleryman in Sri Lanka, a tour of duty in World War I and a top-secret gig as a spy in ...read more
10 Things You May Not Know About Captain James Cook
1. Cook joined the Royal Navy relatively late in life. Cook worked on a Yorkshire farm in his youth before winning an apprenticeship with a merchant sailing company at age 17. He cut his teeth as a mariner on shipping voyages in the choppy waters of North and Baltic Seas, and ...read more
Was Magellan the first person to circumnavigate the globe?
The Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan is often credited as being the first person to have circumnavigated the globe, but the reality of his journey is a bit more complicated. Magellan first set sail in September 1519 as part of an epic attempt to find a western route to the ...read more
6 Famous Castaways
1. Alexander Selkirk Scottish mariner Alexander Selkirk’s solitary odyssey began in 1704, when he arrived at an island off the coast of Chile along with a group of British privateers. The men had spent the previous year harassing Spanish shipping around South America, but when ...read more
6 Famous Places that Never Existed
1. The Kingdom of Prester John For more than 500 years, Europeans believed a Christian king ruled over a vast empire somewhere in the wilds of Africa, India or the Far East. The myth first gained popularity in 1165, after the Byzantine and Holy Roman emperors received a ...read more
5 Adventurers You Might Not Know About
1. Hiram Bingham III: Told the world about Machu Picchu Bingham is credited with becoming the first outsider, in 1911, to visit the ruins of Machu Picchu, the now-famous Inca settlement in the Peruvian Andes that was built in the 15th century and abandoned around the time of the ...read more
6 Explorers Who Disappeared
1. Percy Fawcett The unforgiving Amazon jungle has claimed the lives of more than one adventurer, but perhaps none so famous as Colonel Percy Fawcett, who disappeared in 1925 while on the trail of a mythical lost city. One of the most colorful figures of his era, Fawcett had made ...read more
10 Surprising Facts About Magellan’s Circumnavigation of the Globe
1. Magellan’s expedition had a multinational crew. Although it was a Spanish expedition, Magellan’s fleet featured a culturally diverse crew. Spaniards and Portuguese made up the vast majority of the sailors, but the voyage also included mariners from Greece, Sicily, England, ...read more
Explorer Francis Drake sets sail from England
English seaman Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth, England, with five ships and 164 men on a mission to raid Spanish holdings on the Pacific coast of the New World and explore the Pacific Ocean. Three years later, Drake’s return to Plymouth marked the first circumnavigation of ...read more
Francis Drake circumnavigates the globe
English seaman Francis Drake returns to Plymouth, England, in the Golden Hind, becoming the first British navigator to sail the earth. On December 13, 1577, Drake set out from England with five ships on a mission to raid Spanish holdings on the Pacific coast of the New World. ...read more
Magellan’s expedition circumnavigates globe
One of Ferdinand Magellan’s five ships—the Victoria—arrives at Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, thus completing the first circumnavigation of the world. The Victoria was commanded by Basque navigator Juan Sebastian de Elcano, who took charge of the vessel after the murder of ...read more
Navigator Ferdinand Magellan killed in the Philippines
After traveling three-quarters of the way around the globe, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan is killed during a tribal skirmish on Mactan Island in the Philippines. Earlier in the month, his ships had dropped anchor at the Philippine island of Cebu, and Magellan met with ...read more
Pizarro executes last Inca emperor
Atahuallpa, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas, dies by strangulation at the hands of Francisco Pizarro’s Spanish conquistadors. The execution of Atahuallpa, the last free reigning emperor, marked the end of 300 years of Inca civilization. High in the Andes Mountains of Peru, ...read more
First European explorer reaches Brazil
Spanish explorer Vicente Yanez Pinzon, who had commanded the Nina during Christopher Columbus’ first expedition to the New World, reaches the northeastern coast of Brazil during a voyage under his command. Pinzon’s journey produced the first recorded account of a European ...read more
Vasco da Gama reaches India
Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama becomes the first European to reach India via the Atlantic Ocean when he arrives at Calicut on the Malabar Coast. Da Gama sailed from Lisbon, Portugal, in July 1497, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and anchored at Malindi on the east coast of ...read more
Charles Wilkes claims portion of Antarctica for U.S.
During an exploring expedition, Captain Charles Wilkes sights the coast of eastern Antarctica and claims it for the United States. Wilkes’ group had set out in 1838, sailing around South America to the South Pacific and then to Antarctica, where they explored a 1,500-mile stretch ...read more