People And Biographies

I  INTRODUCTION
Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008), mountain climber and Antarctic explorer. He was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest (8,850 m/29,035 ft), the world’s highest peak, with Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.
New Zealand mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary was one of the first two men to reach the [...]

I  INTRODUCTION
Vasco da Gama (1469?-1524), Portuguese explorer and navigator, who was the first person to reach India from Europe by a sea route. Da Gama was born in Sines, in southwestern Portugal. He joined the Portuguese navy at a young age and participated in the wars against the Spanish kingdom of Castile. Little else [...]

Henry Hudson (?-1611?), English navigator, famous for four great voyages of discovery; a river and a bay in North America are named for him. Nothing is known of Hudson’s life before 1607, the year in which he undertook his first expedition for the English Muscovy Company. Commanding a single ship, the Hopewell, Hudson touched the [...]

John Cabot (1450?-1499), Italian navigator and explorer, who attempted to find a direct route to Asia. Although Cabot was probably born in Genoa, as a youth he moved to Venice, where his seafaring career probably began. He became a naturalized Venetian in 1476, but about eight years later settled in Bristol, England. Cabot had developed [...]

I  INTRODUCTION
Leif Eriksson (975-1020), Icelandic explorer thought to have been one of the first Europeans to set foot on North American soil. His name is also spelled Erikson, Ericsson, or Eiriksson. He was the second son of Erik the Red, who in about 985 established the first European settlement on Greenland after he was [...]

I  INTRODUCTION
Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922), British explorer of Antarctica. Shackleton led three expeditions to the Antarctic, on one of them coming within 179 km (111 mi) of reaching the South Pole—the closest anyone had come at that time. Shackleton is most remembered for leading the fabled Endurance expedition, in which his men survived for ten [...]

Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809), American explorer who served as co-leader, with William Clark, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806), the first American overland exploration of the West and Pacific Northwest. Born in Albemarle County, outside Charlottesville, Virginia, Lewis grew up in Virginia and Georgia as part of the Southern planter aristocracy. During his education, Lewis [...]

Amerigo Vespucci (Latin Americus Vespucius) (1454-1512), Italian navigator, for whom the continents of North and South America are named. He was born in Florence. In 1495 he took over the business of a merchant in Seville, Spain, who had furnished supplies to ships voyaging to the West Indies. Vespucci later set out for the New [...]

Marco Polo (1254-1324), Venetian traveler and author, whose account of his travels and experiences in China offered Europeans a firsthand view of Asian lands and stimulated interest in Asian trade.
Marco Polo was born in Venice, one of the most prominent centers of trade in medieval Europe, into a merchant family. Venetian merchants of the [...]