- published: 21 Jul 2011
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- author: hoiitsroi
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Alaska
Alaska (
i/əˈlæskə/) is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait. Alaska is the 4th least populous and the least densely populated of the 50 United States. Approximately half of Alaska's 722,718 residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area.
Alaska was purchased from Russia on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million ($120 million in today's[when?] dollars) at approximately two cents per acre ($4.74/km²). The land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized (or incorporated) territory on May 11, 1912, and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959.
The name "Alaska" (Аляска) was already introduced in the Russian colonial period, when it was used only for the peninsula and is derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning "the mainland" or, more literally, "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed". It is also known as Alyeska, the "great land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.
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Americas
The Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World.
In the English language, the Americas refers to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, whereas America, in current usage, usually refers to the United States of America.
The Americas cover 8.3% of the Earth's total surface area (28.4% of its land area) and contain about 13.5% of the human population (about 900 million people).
The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the exact dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. The traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000–17,000 years ago, when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific Northwest coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea level rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age.
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Antarctic
The Antarctic (
/ænˈtɑrktɪk/ or /ænˈtɑrtɪk/) is a polar region, specifically the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters, and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence. The region covers some 20% of the Southern Hemisphere, of which 5.5% (14 million km2) is the surface area of the continent itself.
The maritime part of the region constitutes the area of application of the international Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), where for technical reasons the Convention uses an approximation of the Convergence line by means of a line joining specified points along parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude. The implementation of the Convention is managed through an international Commission headquartered in Hobart, Australia by an efficient system of annual fishing quotas, licenses and international inspectors on the fishing vessels, as well as satellite surveillance.
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Antarctica
Antarctica
This map uses an orthographic projection, near-polar aspect. The South Pole is near the center, where longitudinal lines converge.
Antarctica (
i/æntˈɑrtɨkə/ or /ænˈtɑːktɨkə/) is Earth's southernmost continent, containing the geographic South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14.0 million km2 (5.4 million sq mi), it is the fifth-largest continent in area after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. For comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages at least 1 mile (1.6 km) in thickness.
Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Antarctica is considered a desert, with annual precipitation of only 200 mm (8 inches) along the coast and far less inland. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89 °C (−129 °F). There are no permanent human residents, but anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent. Only cold-adapted organisms survive there, including many types of algae, animals (for example mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades), bacteria, fungi, plants, and protista. Vegetation where it occurs is tundra.
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Arizona
Arizona (i/ɛrɪˈzoʊnə/; /ærɪˈzoʊnə/) (Navajo: Hoozdo Hahoodzo; O'odham: Alĭ ṣonak) is a state of the United States, located in the southwestern region of the country. Arizona is also part of the Western United States and of the Mountain West states. Arizona is the sixth most extensive and the 16th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. The second largest city is Tucson, followed in population by eight cities of the Phoenix metropolitan area: Mesa, Chandler, Glendale, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Tempe, Peoria, and Surprise.
Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union, and it achieved statehood on February 14, 1912. Arizona is noted for its desert climate in its southern half, where there are very hot summers and quite mild winters. The northern half of Arizona also features forests of pine, Douglas fir, and spruce trees, a very large, high plateau (the Colorado Plateau) and some mountain ranges—such as the San Francisco Mountains—as well as large, deep canyons, where there is much more moderate weather for three seasons of the year, plus significant snowfalls. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff and Alpine.
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Australia
Australia ( /əˈstreɪljə/), officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent as well as the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north; the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.
For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language groups. After discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing Crown Colonies were established.
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Bering Strait
Coordinates: 66°0′N 169°0′W / 66°N 169°W / 66; -169
The Bering Strait (Russian: Берингов пролив, Beringov proliv, Yupik: Imakpik) is a 53 mile long sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, the easternmost point (169°43'W) of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, USA, the westernmost point (168°05'W) of the North American continent. It lies slightly south of the polar circle at approximately 65°40'N latitude, with the present US-Russia east-west boundary, agreed to only by the USA, at 168°58'37"W.
The Strait has been the subject of scientific speculation that humans migrated from Asia to North America across a land bridge known as Beringia when lower ocean levels–perhaps a result of glaciers locking up vast amounts of water–exposed a ridge beneath the ocean.
The name of the sea containing the strait is sometimes spelled Behring in older books.
The Bering Strait is approximately 53 miles (85 km) wide, with depth varying between 98 feet (30 m) and 160 feet (49 m). It connects the Chukchi Sea (part of the Arctic Ocean) to the north with the Bering Sea (part of the Pacific Ocean) to the south.
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Blue Nile
The Blue Nile (Amharic: ዓባይ?; transliterated: ʿAbbai, but pronounced Abbai, Arabic: النيل الأزرق An Nīl al Āzraq) is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. With the White Nile, the river is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile. The upper reaches of the river is called the Abbay in Ethiopia, where it is considered holy by many, and is believed to be the River Gihon mentioned as flowing out of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2.
According to materials published by the Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency, the Blue Nile has a total length of 1,450 kilometres (900 mi), of which 800 km (500 mi) are inside Ethiopia. The Blue Nile flows generally south from Lake Tana and then west across Ethiopia and northwest into Sudan. Within 30 kilometres (19 mi) of its source at Lake Tana, the river enters a canyon about 400 kilometres (250 mi) long. This gorge is a tremendous obstacle for travel and communication from the north half of Ethiopia to the southern half. The power of the Blue Nile may best be appreciated at Tis Issat Falls, which are 45 metres (148 ft) high, located about 40 kilometres (25 mi) downstream of Lake Tana.
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Brazil
Brazili/brəˈzɪl/ (Portuguese: Brasil, IPA: [bɾaˈziw]), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil, listen (help·info)), is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people. It is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas and the largest lusophone country in the world.
Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 km (4,655 mi). It is bordered on the north by Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and the French overseas region of French Guiana; on the northwest by Colombia; on the west by Bolivia and Peru; on the southwest by Argentina and Paraguay and on the south by Uruguay. Numerous archipelagos form part of Brazilian territory, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz. It borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile.
Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until 1815, when it was elevated to the rank of kingdom and the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves was formed. The colonial bond was in fact broken in 1808, when the capital of the Portuguese colonial empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, after Napoleon invaded Portugal.Independence was achieved in 1822 with the formation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The country became a presidential republic in 1889, when a military coup d'état proclaimed the Republic, although the bicameral legislature, now called Congress, dates back to the ratification of the first constitution in 1824. Its current Constitution, formulated in 1988, defines Brazil as a Federal Republic. The Federation is formed by the union of the Federal District, the 26 States, and the 5,564 Municipalities.
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Brazzaville
Brazzaville is the capital and largest city of the Republic of the Congo and is located on the Congo River. As of the 2001 census, it has a population of 1,018,541 in the city proper, and about 1.5 million in total when including the suburbs located in the Pool Region. The populous city of Kinshasa (more than 10 million inhabitants in 2009), capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, lies just across the Congo River from Brazzaville. Together with Kinshasa, the combined conurbation of Kinshasa-Brazzaville has thus nearly 12 million inhabitants (although significant political and infrastructure challenges prevent the two cities from functioning with any meaningful connection). Over a third of the population of the Republic of Congo lives in the capital, and it is home to 40% of non-agricultural employment. It is also a financial and administrative capital.
In order to distinguish between the two African countries with "Congo" in their names, the Republic of the Congo is sometimes called Congo-Brazzaville, as opposed to Congo-Kinshasa (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known from 1971 to 1997 as Zaire, the capital of which is Kinshasa). Kinshasa lies on the southern bank of the Congo, across from Brazzaville. This is the only place in the world where two national capital cities are situated on opposite banks of a river, within sight of each other.
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British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1922 the British Empire held sway over about 458 million people, one-fifth of the world's population at the time, and covered more than 33,700,000 km2 (13,012,000 sq mi), almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its political, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was often said that "the sun never sets on the British Empire" because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous territories.
During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in the Americas and Asia. A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left England (and then, following union between England and Scotland in 1707, Great Britain) the dominant colonial power in North America and India. The loss of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after a war of independence deprived Britain of some of its oldest and most populous colonies.
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Canada
Canada ( /ˈkænədə/) is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Spanning over 9,900,000 km2 (3,800,000 sq mi), Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area, and its common border with the United States is the longest land border in the world.
The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonial expeditions explored, and later settled, along the region's Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy; the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on Britain.
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Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope (Afrikaans: die Kaap van Goeie Hoop, Dutch: Kaap de Goede Hoop (help·info), Portuguese: Cabo da Boa Esperança) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.
There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the southernmost point is Cape Agulhas, about 150 kilometres (90 mi) to the east-southeast. The currents of the two oceans meet at the point where the warm-water Agulhas current meets the cold water Benguela current and turns back on itself—a point that fluctuates between Cape Agulhas and Cape Point.
When following the western side of the African coastline from the equator, however, the Cape of Good Hope marks the point where a ship begins to travel more eastward than southward. Thus, the first modern rounding of the cape in 1488 by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was a milestone in the attempts by the Portuguese to establish direct trade relations with the Far East (although in his histories Herodotus proves, disbelievingly, that some Phoenicians had done so far earlier than this).[citation needed] Dias called the cape Cabo das Tormentas. "Cape of Storms" was the original name of the "Cape of Good Hope".
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Cordova Bay
Cordova Bay is a bay in the Alexander Archipelago of southeast Alaska. It opens onto Dixon Entrance to the south, between Cape Muzon on Dall Island and Point Marsh (a group of small islets just off Prince of Wales Island). The name Puerto Cordova y Cordova was given by the Spanish explorer Lieutenant Don Jacinto Caamaño in 1792, in honor of Admiral Luis de Córdova y Córdova. The name was published by George Vancouver in 1798.
Cordova Bay is bordered on the west by Dall Island, Long Island, Tlevak Strait, and Sukkwan Island, and on the east by Prince of Wales Island. Cordova Bay extends north and west from its mouth to Lime Point, where it connects with Hetta Inlet. The Coast Survey lists the length as about 19 nautical miles (22 mi; 35 km) from a point between the SE corner of Long Island and Dewey Rocks to Lime Point and an average width of about 3 nautical miles (3.5 mi; 5.6 km) from Ship Islands to Lime Point. Hetta Inlet extends a further 15 nautical miles (17 mi; 28 km) north, and then turns east for about 3 nautical miles (3.5 mi; 5.6 km). Gould Island almost closes the inlet shortly after it turns east, above this point the inlet is accessible only to small craft. Portage Bay is the portion of the inlet above Gould Island; a portage road (Sulzer Portage) connects it with Cholmondelay Sound.
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Dutch Empire
The Dutch Empire (Dutch: Nederlands-koloniale Rijk) comprised the overseas territories controlled by the Dutch Republic and later, the modern Netherlands from the 17th to the 20th century. The Dutch followed Portugal and Spain in establishing an overseas colonial empire, but based on military conquest of already-existing Portuguese and Spanish settlements, and not on discovery and colonization. For this, they were aided by their skills in shipping and trade and the surge of nationalism accompanying the struggle for independence from Spain. Alongside the British, the Dutch initially built up colonial possessions on the basis of indirect state capitalist corporate colonialism, via the Dutch East and West India Companies. Dutch exploratory voyages such as those led by Willem Barents, Henry Hudson and Abel Tasman revealed to Europeans vast new territories.
With Dutch naval power rising rapidly as a major force from the late 16th century, the Netherlands dominated global commerce during the second half of the 17th century during a cultural flowering known as the Dutch Golden Age. The Netherlands lost many of its colonial possessions, as well as its global power status, to the British when the metropole fell to French armies during the Revolutionary Wars. The restored portions of the Dutch Empire, notably the Dutch East Indies and Suriname, remained under Dutch control until the decline of European imperialism following World War II.
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Egypt
Egypti/ˈiːdʒɪpt/ (Arabic: مصر, Miṣr, Egyptian Arabic: [mɑsˤɾ] ; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Kīmi ; Sahidic Coptic: ⲕⲏⲙⲉ, Kēme), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: جمهوريّة مصر العربيّة (help·info), is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Covering an area of about 1,010,000 square kilometers (390,000 sq mi), Egypt is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west.
Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its over 81 million people live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi), where the only arable land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.
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Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan (Kyūjitai: 大日本帝國; Shinjitai: 大日本帝国; Romaji: Dai Nippon Teikoku; literally Great Imperial State of Japan; officially Great Japan or Empire of Great Japan; commonly as Imperial Japan or the Japanese Empire) was an empire and world power that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of Japan on 3 May 1947.
Imperial Japan's rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyōhei (富国強兵?, "Enrich the Country, Strengthen the Army") led to its emergence as a world power, eventually culminating in its membership in the Axis alliance and the conquest of a large part of the Asia-Pacific region. At the height of its power in 1942, the Japanese Empire ruled over a land area spanning 7,400,000 square kilometres (2,857,000 sq mi), making it one of the largest maritime empires in history.
After several large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and the Pacific War, the Empire of Japan also gained notoriety for its war crimes against the peoples of the countries it conquered. After suffering many defeats and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however, the Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allies on 2 September 1945. A period of occupation by the Allies followed the surrender, and a new constitution was created with American involvement. The constitution came into force on 3 May 1947, officially dissolving the Empire. American occupation and reconstruction of the country continued well into the 1950s, eventually forming the current nation-state whose title is simply that ("the nation of Japan" Nippon-koku) or just "Japan" .
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England
Englandi/ˈɪŋɡlənd/ is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, while the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separate it from continental Europe. Most of England comprises the central and southern part of the island of Great Britain in the North Atlantic. The country also includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.
The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world. The English language, the Anglican Church, and English law—the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world—developed in England, and the country's parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's Royal Society laid the foundations of modern experimental science.
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Florida
Florida (i/ˈflɒrɪdə/) is a state in the southeastern United States, bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. Florida is the 22nd most extensive, the 4th most populous, and the 8th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state capital is Tallahassee, its largest city is Jacksonville, and the South Florida metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan area in the southeastern U.S.
Much of Florida is situated on a peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Straits of Florida. Its geography is marked by a coastline, by the omnipresence of water and the threat of hurricanes. Florida has the longest coastline in the contiguous United States, encompassing approximately 1,350 miles (2,170 km), and is the only state to border both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Much of the state is at or near sea level and its terrain is characterized by sedimentary soils. The climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south. Its symbolic animals like the American alligator, Florida panther and the manatee, can be found in the Everglades, one of the most famous national parks in the world.
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Fram
Fram ("Forward") is a ship that was used in expeditions of the Arctic and Antarctic regions by the Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup, Oscar Wisting, and Roald Amundsen between 1893 and 1912. It was designed and built by the Norwegian shipwright Colin Archer for Fridtjof Nansen's 1893 Arctic expedition in which Fram was supposed to freeze into the Arctic ice sheet and float with it over the North Pole.
Fram is said to have sailed farther north (85°57'N) and farther south (78°41'S) than any other wooden ship. Fram is preserved at the Fram Museum in Oslo, Norway.
Nansen's ambition was to explore the Arctic farther north than anyone else. To do that, he would have to deal with a problem that many sailing on the polar ocean had encountered before him: the freezing ice could crush a ship. Nansen's idea was to build a ship that could survive the pressure, not by pure strength, but because it would be of a shape designed to let the ice push the ship up, so it would "float" on top of the ice.
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France
France (Englishi/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] (
listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km2 / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
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Gabon
Gabon (
/ɡəˈbɒn/; French pronunciation: [ɡabɔ̃]), officially the Gabonese Republic (French: République Gabonaise) is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west. It covers a land area of nearly 270,000 km² and has an estimated population of 1,500,000. Its capital and largest city is Libreville.
Since its independence from France on August 17, 1960, Gabon has been ruled by three presidents. In the early 1990s, Gabon introduced a multi-party system and a new democratic constitution that allowed for a more transparent electoral process and reformed many governmental institutions. Gabon is also a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2010-2011 term.
Low population density together with abundant natural resources and foreign private investment have helped make Gabon one of the most prosperous countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the highest HDI and the third highest GDP per capita (PPP) (after Equatorial Guinea and Botswana) in the region.
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Genoa
Genoa /ˈdʒɛnoʊ.ə/ (Italian: Genova [ˈdʒɛːnova] (
listen); Genoese and Ligurian Zena [ˈzeːna]; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is the capital of Liguria and the sixth largest city in Italy, with a population of 608,676 within its administrative limits on a land area of 243.6 km2 (94 sq mi). The urban zone of Genoa extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 718,896. The urban area of Genoa has a population of 800,709. In the metropolitan area live between 859,000 and 1.4 million or 1.5 million people. Genoa is one of Europe's largest cities on the Mediterranean Sea and the largest seaport in Italy.
Genoa has been nicknamed la Superba ("the Superb one") due to its glorious past and impressive landmarks. Part of the old town of Genoa was inscribed on the World Heritage List (UNESCO) in 2006 (see below). The city's rich art, music, gastronomy, architecture and history, allowed it to become the 2004's European Capital of Culture. It is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus.
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Germany
Germany (i/ˈdʒɜrməni/), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen)), is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields.
A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western parts remained dominated by Roman Catholic denominations, with the two factions clashing in the Thirty Years' War, marking the beginning of the Catholic–Protestant divide that has characterized German society ever since. Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states into the German Empire in 1871 which was Prussian dominated. After the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic in 1918, and partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Amidst the Great Depression, the Third Reich was proclaimed in 1933. The latter period was marked by Fascism and World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990 Germany was reunified.
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Gough Island
Gough Island (/ˈɡɒf/, rhymes with cough), also known historically as Gonçalo Álvares (after the Portuguese explorer) or mistakenly as Diego Alvarez, is a volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a dependency of Tristan da Cunha and part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. It is uninhabited except for the personnel of a weather station (usually six people) which the South African National Antarctic Programme has maintained continually on the island since 1956. It is one of the most remote places with a constant human presence.
The island was first named Ilha de Gonçalo Álvares on Portuguese maps (Spanish Isla de Gonzalo Álvarez). It was named Gough Island after Captain Charles Gough of the Richmond who sighted the island in 1713. Confusion of the unusual Portuguese saint name Gonçalo with Spanish Diego led to the misname "Diego Alvarez island" in English sources from 1800s to 1930s.
Gough Island rises to heights of over 900 m (2,953 ft) above sea level. Its area is 35 square miles (91 km2) according to the South African Antarctic Programme. It is located at 40°19′05″S 9°56′07″W / 40.3181°S 9.9353°W / -40.3181; -9.9353Coordinates: 40°19′05″S 9°56′07″W / 40.3181°S 9.9353°W / -40.3181; -9.9353. Topographic features include the highest Peak, Edinburgh Peak, Hags Tooth, Mount Rowett, Sea Elephant Bay, Quest Bay, and Hawkins Bay.
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Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain (Welsh: Prydain Fawr, Scottish Gaelic: Breatainn Mhòr, Cornish: Breten Veur) is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, the largest European island, and the largest of the British Isles. With a population of about 60.0 million people in mid-2009, it is the third most populous island in the world, after Java and Honshū. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1,000 smaller islands and islets. The island of Ireland lies to its west. Politically, Great Britain may also refer to the island itself together with a number of surrounding islands which comprise the territory of England, Scotland and Wales.
All of the island is territory of the sovereign state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and most of the United Kingdom's territory is in Great Britain. Most of England, Scotland, and Wales are on the island of Great Britain, as are their respective capital cities: London, Edinburgh, and Cardiff.
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Greenland
Greenland (Kalaallisut: Kalaallit Nunaat, "Land of the Kalaallit";Danish: Grønland) is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe (specifically Norway and later Denmark) for more than a millennium. Greenland is, by area, the world's largest island. With a population of 56,615 (January 2011 estimate) it is the least densely populated dependency or country in the world.
Greenland has been inhabited, though not continuously, by Arctic peoples via Canada for 4500–5000 years. In the 10th century, Norsemen settled on the uninhabited southern part of Greenland. In the 13th century, the Inuit arrived, and in the late 15th century the Norse colonies were abandoned. In the early 18th century, contact between Scandinavia and Greenland was re-established and Denmark established rule over Greenland.
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Hadhramaut
Hadhramaut, Hadhramout, Hadramawt or Ḥaḍramūt (Arabic: حضرموت Ḥaḍramawt) is the formerly independent Qu'aiti state and sultanate encompassing a historical region of the south Arabian Peninsula along the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Sea, extending eastwards from Yemen to the borders of the Dhofar region of Oman. The name of the region is currently retained in the smaller Hadhramaut Governorate of the Republic of Yemen. The people of Hadhramaut are called Hadhramis and speak Hadhrami Arabic.
The origin of the name is not exactly known. There are various theories. One theory is that the region is named after a nickname of Amar bin Qahtan (عمرو بن قحطان), meaning "death has come", from /ḥaḍara/ (Arabic for "has come") and /maut/ ("death"), the reason being that whenever he entered a battle, there were always many people who died.[citation needed] Another theory is that after the destruction of Thamud, the Islamic prophet Saleh relocated himself and about 4,000 of his followers to the area known as Hadhramaut and it was here where he died and thus, the region was called "death has come".
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Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty (simplified Chinese: 汉朝; traditional Chinese: 漢朝; pinyin: Hàn Cháo; Wade–Giles: Han Ch'ao; IPA: [xân tʂʰɑ̌ʊ̯]) (206 BCE – 220 CE) was an imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty (221–207 BCE) and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms (220–280 CE). It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty (9–23 CE) of the former regent Wang Mang. This interregnum separates the Han into two periods: the Western Han (206 BCE – 9 CE) and Eastern Han (25–220 CE). Spanning over four centuries, the period of the Han Dynasty is considered a golden age in Chinese history. To this day, China's majority ethnic group refers to itself as the "Han people" and Chinese characters are referred to as "Han characters".
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Hawaii
Coordinates: 21°18′41″N 157°47′47″W / 21.31139°N 157.79639°W / 21.31139; -157.79639
Hawaii (i/həˈwaɪ.iː/ or /həˈwaɪʔiː/; Hawaiian: Hawaiʻi Hawaiian pronunciation: [hɐˈvɐiʔi]) is the most recent of the 50 U.S. states (August 21, 1959), and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean.
Hawaii’s diverse natural scenery, warm tropical climate, abundance of public beaches and oceanic surrounding, and active volcanoes make it a popular destination for tourists, surfers, biologists, and volcanologists alike. Due to its mid-Pacific location, Hawaii has many North American and Asian influences along with its own vibrant native culture. Hawaii has over a million permanent residents along with many visitors and U.S. military personnel. Its capital is Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu.
The state encompasses nearly the entire volcanic Hawaiian Island chain, which comprises hundreds of islands spread over 1,500 miles (2,400 km). At the southeastern end of the archipelago, the eight "main islands" are (from the northwest to southeast) Niʻihau, Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Kahoʻolawe, Maui, and the island of Hawaiʻi. The last is by far the largest and is often called "The Big Island" to avoid confusion with the state as a whole. The archipelago is physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania.
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Iceland
Icelandi/ˈaɪslənd/ (Icelandic: Ísland, IPA: [ˈislant]) is a Nordic European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The country has a population of about 320,000 and a total area of 103,000 km2 (40,000 sq mi). The capital and largest city is Reykjavík, with the surrounding areas in the southwestern region of the country being home to two-thirds of the country's population. Iceland is volcanically and geologically active. The interior mainly consists of a plateau characterised by sand fields, mountains and glaciers, while many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate despite a high latitude just outside the Arctic Circle.
According to Landnámabók, the settlement of Iceland began in AD 874 when the chieftain Ingólfur Arnarson became the first permanent Norse settler on the island. Others had visited the island earlier and stayed over winter. Over the following centuries, Norsemen settled Iceland, bringing with them thralls (slaves) of Gaelic origin. From 1262 to 1918 Iceland was part of the Norwegian and later the Danish monarchies. Until the 20th century, the Icelandic population relied largely on fisheries and agriculture, and the country was one of the poorest and least developed in the world. Industrialisation of the fisheries and aid from the Marshall Plan brought prosperity in the years after World War II, and by the 1990s it was one of the world's wealthiest countries. In 1994, Iceland became party to the European Economic Area, which made it possible for the economy to diversify into economic and financial services.
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India
India (i/ˈɪndiə/), officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world's major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also helped shape the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.
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Indonesia
Indonesia (i/ˌɪndəˈniːʒə/ IN-də-NEE-zhə or /ˌɪndoʊˈniːziə/ IN-doh-NEE-zee-ə), officially the Republic of Indonesia (Indonesian: Republik Indonesia Indonesian pronunciation: [rɛpʊblɪk ɪndɔnɛsɪa]), is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 17,508 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an elected legislature and president. The nation's capital city is Jakarta. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia. Other neighboring countries include Singapore, Philippines, Australia, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Indonesia is a founding member of ASEAN and a member of the G-20 major economies. The Indonesian economy is the world's 17th largest economy by nominal GDP.
The Indonesian archipelago has been an important trade region since at least the 7th century, when Srivijaya and then later Majapahit traded with China and India. Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political models from the early centuries CE, and Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms flourished. Indonesian history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural resources. Muslim traders brought Islam, and European powers brought Christianity and fought one another to monopolize trade in the Spice Islands of Maluku during the Age of Discovery. Following three and a half centuries of Dutch colonialism, Indonesia secured its independence after World War II. Indonesia's history has since been turbulent, with challenges posed by natural disasters, corruption, separatism, a democratization process, and periods of rapid economic change.
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Iran
Coordinates: 32°N 53°E / 32°N 53°E / 32; 53
Iran (i/ɪˈrɑːn/ or /aɪˈræn/;Persian: ایران [ʔiˈɾɒn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ایران Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān), is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the Aryans", has been in use natively since the Sassanian era. It came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia ( /ˈpɜrʒə/ or /ˈpɜrʃə/). Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, "Iran" is the name used officially in political contexts.
The 18th-largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km2 (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of around 79 million. It is a country of particular geopolitical significance owing to its location in the Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbors to the north. Iran is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by Iraq and on the northwest by Turkey. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Iran has the second largest proven natural gas reserves in the world and the fourth largest proven petroleum reserves.
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Jacques Cartier
Jacques Cartier (December 31, 1491 – September 1, 1557) was a French explorer of Breton origin who claimed what is now Canada for France. He was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after the Iroquois names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona (Quebec City) and at Hochelaga (Montreal Island).
Jacques Cartier was born in 1491 in Saint-Malo, the port on the extreme north-east coast of Brittany. Cartier, who was a respectable mariner, improved his social status in 1520 by marrying Mary Catherine des Granches, member of a leading family. His good name in Saint-Malo is recognized by its frequent appearance in baptismal registers as godfather or witness.
In 1534, the year the Duchy of Brittany was formally united with France in the Edict of Union, Cartier was introduced to King Francis I by Jean le Veneur, bishop of Saint-Malo and abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, at the Manoir de Brion. The king had previously invited (although not formally commissioned) the Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the eastern coast of North America on behalf of France in 1524. Le Veneur cited voyages to Newfoundland and Brazil as proof of Cartier's ability to "lead ships to the discovery of new lands in the New World".
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Jebel Uweinat
Jebel Uweinat (1,934 m; جبل العوينات gabal al-ʿuwaināt "mountain of sourcelets"; also spelled Jabal, Djebel Al Awaynat, Auenat, Ouenat, Ouinat, Owainat, Oweinat, Uwaynat, Uweinat, Uwenat, Uweynat etc.) is a mountain range in the area of the Egyptian-Libyan-Sudanese border. The mountain lies about 40 km S-SE of Jabal Arkanu. The main spring called Ain Dua lies at the foot of the mountain, on the Libyan side. The W foot (located at 21°52′29″N 24°54′16″E / 21.87472°N 24.90444°E / 21.87472; 24.90444 according to Hassanein) is 618 m high, and overcast with giant boulders fallen because of erosion. In general, the W slope constitutes an oasis, with wells, bushes and grass. The area is notable for its prehistoric petroglyphs first reported by the Egyptian explorer Ahmed Pasha Hassanein--the discoverer of Uweinat, who in 1923 traversed the first 40 km of the mountain towards E, without reaching the end. . Engraved in Sandstone, petroglyphs of Bushmen style are visible, representing lions, giraffes, ostrichs, gazelles, cows and little human figures.
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Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain (including both modern-day England and Wales) and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England and Wales. It had a land border with the Kingdom of Scotland to the north. At the start of the period its capital and chief royal residence was Winchester, but Westminster and Gloucester were accorded almost equal status, with Westminster gradually gaining preference.
England as a state began on 12 July 927 after a gathering of kings from throughout Britain at Eamont Bridge, Cumbria, but broadly traces its origins to the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and the Heptarchy of petty states that followed and ultimately united. The Norman invasion of Wales from 1067–1283 (formalised with the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284) put Wales in England's control, and Wales came under English law with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. On 1 May 1707, England was united with Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain under the terms of the Acts of Union 1707. Though no longer a sovereign state, modern England continues as one of the countries of the United Kingdom.
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Libya
Libya (Arabic: ليبيا Lībyā), Berber: ⵍⵉⴱⵢⴰ) is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west.
With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the third largest country in Africa by area, and the 17th largest in the world. The largest city, Tripoli, is home to 1.7 million of Libya's 6.4 million people. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica.
In 2009 Libya had the highest HDI in Africa and the fourth highest GDP (PPP) per capita in Africa, behind Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world and the 17th-highest petroleum production.
As a result of the Libyan civil war, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, which had at that time been in existence for 34 years, collapsed and Libya entered a period of governance by a transitional administration called the National Transitional Council. The NTC has stated its intention to oversee the first phase of a transition to constitutional democracy, after which it claims it will dissolve in favor of a representative legislature.
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Madagascar
Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar (older name Malagasy Republic, Malagasy: Repoblikan'i Madagasikara [republiˈkʲan madaɡasˈkʲarə̥], French: République de Madagascar) is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The nation comprises the island of Madagascar (the fourth-largest island in the world), as well as numerous smaller peripheral islands. Following the prehistoric breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana, Madagascar split from India around 88 million years ago, allowing plants and animals on the island to evolve in complete isolation. Consequently, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot in which over 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth. The island's diverse ecosystems and unique wildlife are threatened by human settlement.
Initial human settlement of Madagascar occurred from 350 BCE and 550 CE by Austronesian peoples arriving on outrigger canoes from Borneo who were later joined around 1000 CE by Bantu migrants crossing the Mozambique Channel. Other groups continued to settle on Madagascar over time, each one making lasting contributions to Malagasy cultural life. The Malagasy ethnic group is often divided into eighteen or more sub-groups of which the largest are the Merina of the central highlands.
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Maluku Islands
The Maluku Islands, also known as the Moluccas /məˈlʌkəz/, are an archipelago within Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located east of Sulawesi (Celebes), west of New Guinea, and north and east of Timor. The islands were also historically known as the "Spice Islands" by the Chinese and Europeans, but this term has also been applied to other islands outside Indonesia.
Most of the islands are mountainous, some with active volcanoes, and enjoy a wet climate. The vegetation of the small and narrow islands, encompassed by the sea, is very luxuriant; including rainforests, sago, rice and the famous spices - nutmeg, cloves and mace, among others. Though originally Melanesian, many island populations, especially in the Banda Islands, were killed off in the 17th century during the Spice wars. A second influx of Austronesian immigrants began in the early twentieth century under the Dutch and continues in the Indonesian era.
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Marquesas Islands
Coordinates: 9°27′16″S 139°23′20″W / 9.45444°S 139.38889°W / -9.45444; -139.38889
The Marquesas Islands (French: Îles Marquises or Archipel des Marquises or Marquises; Marquesan: Te Henua (K)enana (North Marquesan) and Te Fenua `Enata (South Marquesan), both meaning "The Land of Men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the southern Pacific Ocean. The Marquesas are located at 9° 00S, 139° 30W. The highest point is the peak of Mount Oave (French: Mont Oave) on Ua Pu island at 1,230 m (4,035 ft) above sea level.
The Marquesas Islands form one of the five administrative divisions (subdivisions administratives) of French Polynesia. The capital of the Marquesas Islands administrative subdivision is the settlement of Taiohae on the island of Nuku Hiva. The population of the Marquesas Islands was 8,632 at the August 2007 census.
The first recorded settlers of the Marquessa were Polynesians, who, from archæological evidence, are believed to have arrived before 100 AD. Ethnological and linguistic evidence suggests that they likely arrived from the region of Tonga and Samoa.
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Mexico
Mexico (i/ˈmɛksɨkoʊ/; Spanish: México, IPA: [ˈmexiko] ( listen)), officially the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos (help·info)), is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States of America; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometres (over 760,000 sq mi), Mexico is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the thirteenth largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of over 113 million, it is the eleventh most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one states and a Federal District, the capital city.
In Pre-Columbian Mexico many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before the first contact with Europeans. In 1521, Spain conquered and colonized the territory from its base in México-Tenochtitlan, which was administered as the Viceroyalty of New Spain. This territory would eventually become Mexico as the colony's independence was recognized in 1821. The post-independence period was characterized by economic instability, the Mexican-American War and territorial cession to the United States, a civil war, two empires and a domestic dictatorship. The latter led to the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country's current political system. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time that an opposition party won the presidency from the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
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Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire, Shahan-e-Gurkhani, Shahan-e-Mughal, Sultanate-e-Mughliya, Daulat-e-Mughliya (Persian: شاهان گورکانی Shāhān-e Gūrkānī; Urdu: مغلیہ سلطنت; self-designation: گوركانى Gūrkānī ), or Mogul (also Moghul) Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were direct descendants of Genghis Khan through Chagatai Khan and Timur. The Mughal Empire began in 1526; at the height of their power in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, they controlled most of the Indian Subcontinent—extending from Bengal in the east to Balochistan in the west, Kashmir in the north to the Kaveri basin in the south. According to "Babur-Nama", Kazakh tribal aristocracy along with number of other Turkic soldiers participated actively in the campaign of Babur, which made great influence over the development of Mughal Empire. Its population at that time has been estimated as between 110 and 150 million, over a territory of more than 3.2 million square kilometres (1.2 million square miles).
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New Zealand
New Zealand (Māori: Aotearoa) is an island country located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses ‒ that of the North and South Islands ‒ as well as numerous smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres (900 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans.
During its long isolation, New Zealand developed a distinctive biodiversity of both animal and plant life. Most notable are the large number of unique bird species, many of which became extinct after the arrival of humans and introduced mammals. With a mild maritime climate, the land was mostly covered in forest. The country's varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions caused by the Pacific and Indo-Australian Plates clashing beneath the earth's surface.
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Nootka Sound
Nootka Sound is a complex inlet or sound of the Pacific Ocean on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Historically also known as King George's Sound, as a strait it separates Vancouver Island and Nootka Island.
The inlet is part of the traditional territory of the indigenous Nuu-chah-nulth people. They called it Mowichat.John R. Jewitt, an Englishman who wrote a memoir about his years as a captive of chief Maquinna in 1802–1805, describes the area in some detail.
On August 8, 1774, the Spanish Navy ship Santiago, under Juan Pérez, entered and anchored in the inlet. Although the Spanish did not land, natives paddled to the ship to trade furs for abalone shells from California. Pérez named the entrance to Nootka Sound Surgidero de San Lorenzo. The word surgidero means "anchorage". When Esteban José Martinez arrived in 1789 he gave Nootka Sound the name Puerto de San Lorenzo de Nuca. The Spanish establishment established at Friendly Cove he gave the name Santa Cruz de Nuca.
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North Pole
Coordinates: 90°N 0°W / 90°N 0°W / 90; -0
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It should not be confused with the North Magnetic Pole.
The North Pole is the northernmost point on Earth, lying diametrically opposite the South Pole. It defines geodetic latitude 90° North, as well as the direction of true north. At the North Pole all directions point south; all lines of longitude converge there, so its longitude can be defined as any degree value.
While the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. This makes it impractical to construct a permanent station at the North Pole (unlike the South Pole). However, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, have constructed a number of manned drifting stations on a generally annual basis since 1937, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole. In recent years, a number of studies have predicted that the North Pole may become seasonally ice-free due to Arctic shrinkage, with timescales varying from next year to fifty years or more.
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Northern Canada
Northern Canada, colloquially the North, is the vast northernmost region of Canada variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to the three territories of Canada: Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. Similarly, the Far North (when contrasted to the North) may refer to the Canadian Arctic: the portion of Canada north of the Arctic Circle.
These reckonings somewhat depend on the concept of nordicity, a measure of northernness that other Arctic territories share. Canada, a country in northern North America whose population is concentrated along its southern frontier with the United States, is frequently reckoned to not have a 'south.' As such, the 'South' is only perceived as a region when it is contrasted to or viewed from those in the North.
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Norway
Norwayi/ˈnɔrweɪ/ (Norwegian: Norge (Bokmål) or Noreg (Nynorsk)), officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and the subantarctic Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres (148,747 sq mi) and a population of about 5 million. It is the second least densely populated country in Europe. The majority of the country shares a border to the east with Sweden; its northernmost region is bordered by Finland to the south and Russia to the east; in its south Norway borders the Skagerrak Strait across from Denmark. The capital city of Norway is Oslo. Norway's extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea, is home to its famous fjords.
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Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.
At 165.2 million square kilometres (64.1 million square miles) in area, this largest division of the World Ocean – and, in turn, the hydrosphere – covers about 46% of the Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface area, making it larger than all of the Earth's land area combined. The equator subdivides it into the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, with two exceptions: the Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific. The Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres (35,797 ft).
The eastern Pacific Ocean was first sighted by Europeans early in the 16th century. Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and named it Mar del Sur (South Sea). The ocean's current name was given by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish expedition of world circumnavigation in 1521, who encountered favourable winds as he reached the ocean and called it Mar Pacifico in Portuguese, meaning "peaceful sea".
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Panama
Panama (i/ˈpænəmɑː/ PAN-ə-mah; Spanish: Panamá), officially the Republic of Panama (Spanish: República de Panamá [reˈpuβlika ðe panaˈma]), is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The capital is Panama City. Explored and settled by the Spanish in the 16th century, Panama broke with Spain in 1821 and joined a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela, named the Republic of Gran Colombia.When Gran Colombia the dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada remained joined. Nueva Granada later became the Republic of Colombia.
With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the Panama Canal to be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. In 1977, an agreement was signed for the complete transfer of the Canal from the United States to Panama by the end of the century.
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Patagonia
Patagonia is a region located at the southern end of South America, territory shared by Argentina and Chile, boasting some of the most dramatic landscapes on Earth. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the mountain range to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean. To the west, it includes the territory of Valdivia through Tierra del Fuego archipelago.
The name Patagonia comes from the word patagón used by Magellan in 1520 to describe the native people that his expedition thought to be giants. It is now believed the Patagons were actually Tehuelches with an average height of 180 cm (~5′11″) compared to the 155 cm (~5′1″) average for Spaniards of the time.
The Argentine portion of Patagonia includes the provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut and Santa Cruz, as well as the eastern portion of Tierra del Fuego archipelago and the southernmost department of Buenos Aires province: Patagones. The Argentine politico-economic Patagonic Region includes the Province of La Pampa.
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Philippines
The Philippinesi/ˈfɪlɨpiːnz/ FI-lə-peenz (Filipino: Pilipinas [ˌpɪlɪˈpinɐs]), officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republika ng Pilipinas) is a sovereign country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam. The Sulu Sea to the southwest lies between the country and the island of Borneo, and to the south the Celebes Sea separates it from other islands of Indonesia. It is bounded on the east by the Philippine Sea. Its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire and its tropical climate make the Philippines prone to earthquakes and typhoons but have also endowed the country with natural resources and made it one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world. An archipelago comprising 7,107 islands, the Philippines is categorized broadly into three main geographical divisions: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Its capital city is Manila.
With an estimated population of about 98 million people, the Philippines is the 7th most populated Asian country and the 12th most populated country in the world. An additional 12.5 million Filipinos live overseas. Multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelago's earliest inhabitants. They were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples who brought with them influences from Malay, Hindu, and Islamic societies. Trade introduced Chinese cultural influences which remain to this day.
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Phoenicia
Phoenicia (UK /fɨˈnɪʃə/, US /fəˈniːʃə/; from the Greek: Φοινίκη: Phoiníkē), was an ancient Semitic Canaanite civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. The major Phoenician cities were on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550 BC to 300 BC. The Phoenicians used the galley, a man-powered sailing vessel, and are credited with the invention of the bireme. They were famed in Classical Greece and Rome as 'traders in purple', referring to their monopoly on the precious purple dye of the Murex snail, used, among other things, for royal clothing, and for their spread of the alphabet (or abjad), upon which all major modern phonetic alphabets are derived.
In the Amarna tablets of the 14th century BC, people from the region called themselves Kenaani or Kinaani (Canaanites), although these letters predate the invasion of the Sea Peoples by over a century. Much later, in the 6th century BC, Hecataeus of Miletus writes that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα, a name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix". Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been made to Byblos to bring back "cedars of Lebanon" as early as the third millennium BC.
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Pitcairn Islands
The Pitcairn Islands ( /ˈpɪtkɛərn/;Pitkern: Pitkern Ailen), officially named the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, form a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The islands are a British Overseas Territory. The four islands—named Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno—are spread over several hundred miles of ocean and have a total land area of about 18 square miles (47 km2). Only Pitcairn, the second largest and measuring about 2 miles (3.2 km) across, is inhabited.
The islands are best known as home of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the Tahitians (or Polynesians) who accompanied them, an event retold in numerous books and films. This history is still apparent in the surnames of many of the islanders. With only about 48 inhabitants (currently from four main families: Christian, Warren, Young, and Brown), Pitcairn is the least populous jurisdiction in the world. The United Nations Committee on Decolonisation includes the Pitcairn Islands on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.
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Portugal
Portugali/ˈpɔrtʃʉɡəl/ (Portuguese: Portugal, IPA: [puɾtuˈɣaɫ]), officially the Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: República Portuguesa) is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula . Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira are part of Portugal. The country is named after its second largest city, Porto, whose Latin name was Portus Cale.
The land within the borders of the current Portuguese Republic has been continuously settled since prehistoric times: occupied by Celts like the Gallaeci and the Lusitanians, integrated into the Roman Republic and later settled by Germanic peoples such as the Suebi, Swabians, Vandals and the Visigoths. In the 8th century most of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Moorish invaders professing Islam, which were later expelled by the Knights Templar under the Order of Christ. During the Christian Reconquista, Portugal established itself as an independent kingdom from León in 1139, claiming to be the oldest European nation state.
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Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire (Portuguese: Império Português), also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire (Ultramar Português) or the Portuguese Colonial Empire (Império Colonial Português), was the first global empire in history. In addition, it was the longest-lived of the modern European colonial empires, spanning almost six centuries, from the capture of Ceuta in 1415 to the handover of Macau in 1999 or the grant of sovereignty to East Timor in 2002. The empire spread throughout a vast number of territories that are now part of 53 different sovereign states.
Portuguese sailors began exploring the coast of Africa in 1419, using recent developments in navigation, cartography and maritime technology such as the caravel, in order that they might find a sea route to the source of the lucrative spice trade. In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1498, Vasco da Gama reached India. In 1500, either by an accidental landfall or by the crown's secret design, Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil on the South American coast. Over the following decades, Portuguese sailors continued to explore the coasts and islands of East Asia, establishing forts and factories as they went. By 1571, a string of outposts connected Lisbon to Nagasaki along the coasts of Africa, the Middle East, India, and Asia. This commercial network brought great wealth to Portugal.
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RMS Titanic
RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, US. The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,514 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. She was the largest ship afloat at the time of her maiden voyage. One of three Olympic class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line, she was built between 1909–11 by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. She carried 2,223 people.
Her passengers included some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as over a thousand emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia and elsewhere seeking a new life in North America. The ship was designed to be the last word in comfort and luxury, with an on-board gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants and opulent cabins. She also had a powerful wireless telegraph provided for the convenience of passengers as well as for operational use. Though she had advanced safety features such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, she lacked enough lifeboats to accommodate all of those aboard. Due to outdated maritime safety regulations, she carried only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people – slightly more than half of the number travelling on the maiden voyage and one-third her total passenger and crew capacity.
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Russia
Russiai/ˈrʌʃə/ or /ˈrʊʃə/ (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the US state of Alaska by the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the eighth most populous nation with 143 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning nine time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources and is the largest producer of oil and natural gas globally. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.
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Russian Empire
The Russian Empire (Pre-reform Russian orthography: Россійская Имперія, Modern Russian: Российская Империя, translit: Rossiyskaya Imperiya) was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the short-lived Russian Republic, which was succeeded by the Soviet Union. It was one of the largest empires in world history, surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires: at one point in 1866, it stretched from eastern Europe across Asia and into North America.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea on the south, from the Baltic Sea on the west to the Pacific Ocean and into North America on the east. With 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third largest population of the world at the time, after Qing China and the British Empire. Like all empires, it represented a large disparity in economic, ethnic and religious positions. Its government, ruled by the Emperor, was the last absolute monarchy in Europe at the time of its demise.
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Scotland
Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Alba ([ˈalˠ̪apə] listen (help·info))) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest. In addition to the mainland, Scotland constitutes over 790 islands including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.
Edinburgh, the country's capital and second largest city, is one of Europe's largest financial centres. Edinburgh was the hub of the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century, which transformed Scotland into one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, was once one of the world's leading industrial cities and now lies at the centre of the Greater Glasgow conurbation. Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third largest city in Scotland, the title of Europe's oil capital.
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Siberia
Coordinates: 60°0′N 105°0′E / 60°N 105°E / 60; 105
Siberia (/saɪˈbɪəriə/; Russian: Сиби́рь, tr. Sibir'; IPA: [sʲɪˈbʲirʲ] ( listen)) is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union (USSR) from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th to 19th centuries.
Encompassing much of the Eurasian Steppe, the territory of Siberia extends eastward from the Ural Mountains to the watershed between the Pacific and Arctic drainage basins, and southward from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and the national borders of Mongolia and China. Siberia makes up about 77% of Russia's territory (13.1 million square kilometres), but has only 28% (40 million people) of Russia's population.
Some sources say that the word Siberia originates from the Turkic for "sleeping land". Another version is that this name was the ancient tribal name of the Sabirs, Turkic nomads later assimilated to Siberian Tatars. The modern usage of the name appeared in the Russian language after the conquest of the Siberian Khanate.
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Solomon Islands
Solomon Islandsi/ˈsɒləmən ˈaɪləndz/ is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of 28,400 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi). The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal. The nation of the Solomon Islands is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
The Solomon Islands are believed to have been inhabited by Melanesian people for many thousands of years. Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to arrive in Solomon Islands in 1568 and named them Islas Salomón. The United Kingdom established a protectorate over the Solomon Islands in 1893. In the Second World War there was fierce fighting between the Americans and the Japanese in the Solomon Islands campaign of 1942–45, including the Battle of Guadalcanal.
Self-government was achieved in 1976 and independence two years later. The Solomon Islands is a constitutional monarchy with the Queen of the Solomon Islands, at present Elizabeth II, as the head of state. Gordon Lilo Darcy is the eleventh and current Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands.
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South Carolina
South Carolina (i/ˌsaʊθ kærəˈlaɪnə/) is a state in the Southeastern United States. It is bordered to the north by North Carolina; to the south and west by Georgia, located across the Savannah River; and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence from the British Crown during the American Revolution. The colony was originally named by King Charles II of England in honor of his father Charles I (Carolus being Latin for Charles). South Carolina was the 8th state to ratify the US Constitution and become a state which it did on May 23, 1788. South Carolina later became the first state to vote to secede from the Union which it did on December 20, 1860. It was readmitted to the United States on June 25, 1868.
South Carolina is the 40th most extensive and the 24th most populous of the 50 United States. South Carolina comprises 46 counties. The capital and largest city of the state is Columbia.
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South China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around 3,500,000 square kilometres (1,400,000 sq mi). The area's importance largely results from one-third of the world's shipping transiting through its waters, and that it is believed to hold huge oil and gas reserves beneath its seabed.
It is located
The minute South China Sea Islands, collectively an archipelago, number in the hundreds. The sea and its mostly uninhabited islands are subject to competing claims of sovereignty by several countries. These claims are also reflected in the variety of names used for the islands and the sea.
South China Sea is the dominant term used in English for the sea, and the name in most European languages is equivalent, but it is sometimes called by different names in neighboring countries, often reflecting historical claims to hegemony over the sea.
The English name is a result of early European interest in the sea as a route from Europe and South Asia to the trading opportunities of China. In the sixteenth century Portuguese sailors called it the China Sea (Mar da China); later needs to differentiate it from nearby bodies of water led to calling it the South China Sea. The International Hydrographic Organization refers to the sea as "South China Sea (Nan Hai)".
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Soviet Union
The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
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Spain
Spain (i/ˈspeɪn/ SPAYN; Spanish: España, pronounced: [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a sovereign state and a member of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar; to the north and north east by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal.
Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. Furthermore, the town of Llívia is a Spanish exclave situated inside French territory. With an area of 504,030 square kilometres (194,610 sq mi), it is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union after France, and the fourth largest country in Europe after Russia, Ukraine and France.
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Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire (Spanish: Imperio Español) comprised territories and colonies administered by Spain in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its political and economic power when it became the foremost global power. Its establishment in the 15th century ushered in the modern global era and five centuries of European dominance of global affairs. Spain's territorial reach beyond Europe spanned six centuries, from the first voyages to the Americas in 1492 until the independence of its last African colonies in the 1970s.
After the War of the Castilian Succession (1475–1479), Spain had emerged with a personally unified monarchy, with the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs or los Reyes Catolicos between the Queen of Castile and the King of Aragon: the internal and foreign policy was coordinated although the rule was separate. In 1492, the Spanish monarchs completed the Reconquista with the incorporation of Granada to the Kingdom of Castile. That same year Christopher Columbus commanded the first Spanish exploratory voyage west across the Atlantic Ocean, leading to the Discovery of America and Europe's eventual colonial engagement in the New World. The Americas thereby became the focus of Spanish exploration and colonization.
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Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (i/ʃriː ˈlɑːŋkə/, /sriːˈlɑːŋkə/, or /sriːˈlæŋkə/;Sinhala: ශ්රී ලංකාව, Tamil: இலங்கை), is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent in South Asia. Known until 1972 as Ceylon ( /sɨˈlɒn/, /seɪˈlɒn/, or /siːˈlɒn/), Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar, the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the Maldives.
As a result of its location in the path of major sea routes, Sri Lanka is a strategic naval link between West Asia and South East Asia. It was an important stop on the ancient Silk Road. Sri Lanka has also been a center of the Buddhist religion and culture from ancient times, being the nation where the Buddhist teachings were first written down as well as the oldest continually Buddhist country. Sri Lanka boasts a diverse range of cultures, languages and religions. The Sinhalese people form the majority of the population; Tamils, who are concentrated in the north and east of the island, form the largest ethnic minority. Other communities include Moors, Burghers, Kaffirs, Malays and the aboriginal Vedda people.
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Strait of Magellan
The Strait of Magellan (also called the Straits of Magellan or the Magellanic Strait) comprises a navigable sea route immediately south of mainland South America and north of Tierra del Fuego. The waterway is the most important natural passage between the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, but it is considered a difficult route to navigate because of the unpredictable winds and currents and the narrowness of the passage.
Ferdinand Magellan (Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães), a Portuguese sailor in the service of Charles I of Spain, became the first European to navigate the strait in 1520 during his global circumnavigation voyage.
On March 22, 1518, the expedition was organized in Valladolid, naming Magellan captain general of the fleet and governor of all the lands discovered, and establishing the privileges of Magellan and his business associate Ruy Falero. The fleet would become known as the "Armada de las Molucas" or "Navy of the Moluccas". The expeditionary fleet of 5 ships set sail from Sanlucar de Barrameda on September 20, 1519.
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Thailand
Thailand ( /ˈtaɪlænd/ TY-land or /ˈtaɪlənd/;Thai: ประเทศไทย, RTGS: Prathet Thai), officially the Kingdom of Thailand (Thai: ราชอาณาจักรไทย, RTGS: Ratcha Anachak Thai; IPA: [râːt.tɕʰā ʔāːnāːtɕàk tʰāj] ( listen)), formerly known as Siam (Thai: สยาม; RTGS: Sayam), is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Burma. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India in the Andaman Sea to the southwest.
The country is a constitutional monarchy, headed by King Rama IX, the ninth king of the House of Chakri, who, having reigned since 1946, is the world's longest-serving head of state and the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history. The king of Thailand is titled Head of State, Head of the Armed Forces, the Upholder of the Buddhist religion, and the Defender of all Faiths.
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Tian Shan
The Tian Shan (Chinese: 天山; pinyin: Tiān Shān; literally "celestial mountains"; Mongolian: Тэнгэр уул; Uyghur: تەڭرى تاغ, ULY: Tengri Tagh), also spelled Tien Shan, is a large system of mountain ranges located in Central Asia. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Victory Peak (Jengish Chokusu), 7,439 metres (24,406 ft).
The Chinese name for Tian Shan may be derived from the Xiongnu language name qilian (祁连), which was described by Sima Qian in the Records of the Grand Historian as the homeland of the pre-Xiongnu peoples of the region, the Yuezhi, and has been said to refer to the Tian Shan rather than to the range 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) further east now known by this name. The nearby Tannu-Ola Mountains (Tuvan: Таңды-Уула Tangdy-Uula) bear the same name ("heaven/celestial mountains" or "god/spirit mountains").
Tian Shan lies to the north and west of the Taklamakan Desert and directly north of the Tarim Basin in the border region of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China. In the south it links up with the Pamir Mountains and to north and east it meets the Altai Mountains of Mongolia. It also extends into the Chinese province of Xinjiang and into the northern areas of Pakistan, where it joins the Hindu Kush.[citation needed]
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Torres Strait
The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately 150 km (93 mi) wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland. To the north is the Western Province of Papua New Guinea.
The strait links the Coral Sea to the east with the Arafura Sea in the west. Although it is an important international sea lane, it is very shallow, and the maze of reefs and islands can make it hazardous to navigate. In the south the Endeavour Strait is located between Prince of Wales Island (Muralug) and the mainland.
Several clusters of islands lie in the Strait, collectively called the Torres Strait Islands. There are at least 274 of these islands, of which 17 have present-day permanent settlements. Over 6,800 Torres Strait Islanders live on the Islands and 42,000 live on the mainland.
These islands have a variety of topographies, ecosystems and formation history. Several of those closest to the New Guinea coastline are low-lying, formed by alluvial sedimentary deposits borne by the outflow of the local rivers into the sea. Many of the western islands are hilly and steep, formed mainly of granite, and are peaks of the northernmost extension of the Great Dividing Range now turned into islands when sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age. The central islands are predominantly coral cays, and those of the east are of volcanic origins. The islands are considered Australian territory and are administered from Thursday Island.
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Tuvalu
Tuvalu (i/tuːˈvɑːluː/ too-VAH-loo or /ˈtuːvəluː/ TOO-və-loo), formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. It comprises four reef islands and five true atolls spread out from 6° to 10° south. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. Its population of 10,544 makes it the third-least populous sovereign state in the world, with only Vatican City and Nauru having fewer inhabitants. In terms of physical land size, at just 26 square kilometres (10 sq mi) Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world, larger only than the Vatican City at 0.44 km2 (0.17 sq mi), Monaco at 1.98 km2 (0.76 sq mi) and Nauru at 21 km2 (8.1 sq mi).
The first inhabitants of Tuvalu were Polynesian people. In 1568 Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña sailed through the islands and is understood to have sighted Nui during his expedition in search of Terra Australis. In 1819 the island of Funafuti was named Ellice's Island; the name Ellice was applied to all nine islands after the work of English hydrographer Alexander George Findlay (1812–1876). The islands came under Britain's sphere of influence in the late 19th century, when the Ellice Islands were declared a British protectorate by Captain Gibson, R. N. of HMS Curaçao between 9th and 16 October 1892. The Ellice Islands were administered as British protectorate by a Resident Commissioner from 1892 to 1916 as part of the British Western Pacific Territories (BWPT), and later as part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony from 1916 to 1974.
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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.
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United States
The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
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Vanikoro
Vanikoro (sometimes known as Vanikolo) is an island from the Santa Cruz group, located 118 km to the Southeast of the main Santa Cruz group. It belongs administratively to the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands.
The name Vanikoro is always used as though it referred to a single island, due to both its geophysical and cultural unity. However, technically it is a group of several nearby islands surrounded by a single belt of coral reef. Only the two major islands are inhabited: the bigger one Banie, and the smaller one Teanu (or Tevai). Other, uninhabited islets in the Vanikoro group include Manieve, Nomianu and Nanunga. The total area of the Vanikoro group is 173 km².
The 800 inhabitants of Vanikoro consist of two different populations, who tend to live separately. The Melanesian majority, about 600 people, are the descendants of the original population of Vanikoro. A minority of about 200 individuals are of Polynesian descent; for the last few centuries they have established settlements on the southern coast of Banie, even though they still preserve close links with Tikopia, an island lying 200 km eastwards, and which identify as their origin.
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Vanuatu
Vanuatu (Englishi/ˌvɑːnuːˈɑːtuː/ vah-noo-AH-too or /vænˈwɑːtuː/ van-WAH-too; Bislama IPA: [vanuaˈtu]), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (French: République de Vanuatu, Bislama: Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some 1,750 kilometres (1,090 mi) east of northern Australia, 500 kilometres (310 mi) northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.
Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were the members of a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós who arrived in Espiritu Santo in 1605. In the 1880s France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the country, and in 1906 they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago as the New Hebrides through a British–French Condominium. An independence movement arose in the 1970s, and the Republic of Vanuatu was created in 1980.
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Abel Tasman
Abel Janszoon Tasman (Dutch: [ˈaːbəl ˈjɑnsoʊn ˈtɑsmɐn]; 1603–1659) was a Dutch seafarer, explorer and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC (United East India Company). His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and New Zealand, and to sight the Fiji islands. His navigator François Visscher, and his merchant Isaack Gilsemans, mapped substantial portions of Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific Islands.
Abel Tasman was born in 1603 in Lutjegast in what is now the province of Groningen, the Netherlands. In 1633, Tasman went to Batavia in service of the VOC; four years later he was back in Amsterdam. Tasman signed on for another ten years and took his wife along to Batavia. In 1639 Tasman was sent as second in command of an exploring expedition in the north Pacific under Matthijs Quast. His fleet included the ships Engel and Gracht and reached Fort Zeelandia (Dutch Formosa) and Deshima.
In August 1642, the Council of the Indies, consisting of Antonie van Diemen, Cornelis van der Lijn, Joan Maetsuycker, Justus Schouten, Salomon Sweers, Cornelis Witsen, and Pieter Boreel in Batavia despatched Abel Tasman and Franchoijs Visscher on a voyage of which one of the objects was to obtain knowledge of "all the totally unknown provinces of Beach".
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Afanasy Nikitin
Afanasy Nikitin (Афана́сий Ники́тин in Russian) (died 1472) was a Russian merchant and one of the first Europeans (after Niccolò de' Conti) to travel to and document his visit to India. He described his trip in a narrative known as The Journey Beyond Three Seas (Khozheniye za tri morya).
In 1466, Nikitin left his hometown of Tver on a commercial trip to India. He travelled down the Volga River, reached Derbent, then Baku and later Persia by crossing the Caspian Sea, where he would live for one year. In the spring of 1469, Nikitin arrived at the city of Ormus and then, crossing the Arabian Sea, reached the sultanate of Bahmani, where he would live for 3 years. On his way back, Nikitin visited Muscat, the Arabian sultanate of Fartak, Somalia and Trabzon, and in 1472 arrived at Feodosiya by crossing the Black Sea. On his way to Tver, Nikitin died not far from Smolensk in the autumn of that year.
During his trip, Nikitin studied the population of India, its social system, government, military (he witnessed war-games featuring war elephants), its economy, religion, lifestyles, and natural resources. The abundance and trustworthiness of Nikitin's factual material provide a valuable source of information about India at that time.
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Ahmad ibn Fadlan
Ahmad ibn Fadlān ibn al-Abbās ibn Rāšid ibn Hammād (Arabic: أحمد بن فضلان بن العباس بن راشد بن حماد) was a 10th century Kurdish traveler, famous for his account of his travels as a member of an embassy of the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad to the king of the Volga Bulgars. His account is most known for providing a description of the Volga Vikings, including an eye-witness account of a ship burial.
For a long time, only an incomplete version of the account was known, as transmitted in the geographical dictionary of Yāqūt (under the headings Atil, Bashgird, Bulghār, Khazar, Khwārizm, Rūs), published in 1823 by Fraehn. Only in 1923 was a manuscript discovered by the Turkic scholar of Bashkir origin Zeki Validi Togan in the Astane Quds Museum, Mashhad, Iran/Persia. The manuscript MS 5229 dates from the 13th century (7th cent. Hijra) and consists of 420 pages (210 folia). Besides other geographical treatises, it contains a fuller version of Ibn Fadlan's text (pp. 390–420). Additional passages not preserved in MS 5229 are quoted in the work of the 16th century Persian geographer Amīn Rāzī called Haft Iqlīm ("Seven Climes").
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Ahmed Hassanein
Ahmed Hassanein Pasha, KCVO, MBE (Arabic: أحمد حسنين باشا) (31 October 1889 – 19 February 1946) or Aḥmad Moḥammad Makhlūf Ḥasanēn al-Būlākī (Arabic: أحمد محمد مخلوف حسنين البولاقى) was an Oxford-educated Egyptian courtier, diplomat, Olympic athlete in fencing, photographer, writer, politician, explorer and tutor to King Farouk.
Ahmed Hassanein was one of the most influential figures in Egyptian politics as the Chief of the Diwan and Chamberlain to Farouk, the king of Egypt from 1936 to 1952.
Son of an Al Azhar professor, he was a grandson of the last Admiral of the Egyptian fleet before it was dismantled under British occupation in 1882.
King Fuad I, father of Farouk, chose Ahmed to tutor the Crown Prince during the Prince's studies as a teenager in London. While Fuad spoke Turkish as his mother-tongue and was not therefore able to eloquently address his own nation, Farouk, under the supervision of Ahmed Pasha Hassanein, learned to speak Arabic well and developed a strong sense of nationalism.
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Alessandro Malaspina
Alessandro Malaspina (November 5, 1754 – April 9, 1810) was an Italian nobleman who spent most of his life as a Spanish naval officer and explorer. Under a Spanish royal commission, he undertook a voyage around the world from 1786 to 1788, then, from 1789 to 1794, a scientific expedition (the Malaspina Expedition) throughout the Pacific Ocean, exploring and mapping much of the west coast of the Americas from Cape Horn to the Gulf of Alaska, crossing to Guam and the Philippines, and stopping in New Zealand, Australia, and Tonga.
Malaspina was christened "Alessandro". He signed his letters in Spanish "Alexandro", which is usually modernized to "Alejandro" by Spanish scholars.
Malaspina was born in Mulazzo, a small principality ruled by his family. Today part of Tuscany, it was then part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, a fiefdom of the Holy Roman Empire. Alessandro's parents were the Marquis Carlo Morello and Caterina Meli Lupi di Soragna. During 1762–1765, his family lived in Palermo with Alessandro's great-uncle, Giovanni Fogliani Sforza d'Aragona, the viceroy of Sicily. From 1765 to 1773 he studied at the Clementine College in Rome. In 1773 he was accepted into the Order of Malta and spent about a year living on the island of Malta where he learned the basics of sailing.
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Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci (Italian pronunciation: [ameˈriɡo vesˈputtʃi]) (March 9, 1454 – February 22, 1512) was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer who first demonstrated that Brazil and the West Indies did not represent Asia's eastern outskirts, as initially conjectured from Columbus' voyages, but instead constituted an entirely separate landmass heretofore unknown to Afro-Eurasians. The newly recognized super continent would come to be known as "the Americas", which probably derived from the feminized Latin version of his first name.
Amerigo Vespucci was born and raised in Florence, Italy. He was the third son of Ser Nastagio (Anastasio), a Florentine notary, and Lisabetta Mini. Amerigo Vespucci was educated by his uncle, Fra Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, a Dominican friar of San Marco in Florence.
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Andrew Croft
Colonel Noel Andrew Cotton Croft DSO OBE (30 November 1906 — 26 June 1998), was a member of the Special Operations Executive in the Second World War, with operations in Norway and Corsica, as well as Military attaché to Sweden, an explorer, holding the longest self-sustaining journey in the Guinness Book of Records for more than 60 years (across Greenland), and Commandant of the Cadet Corps of the Metropolitan Police Service. He also stepped down with his leader, Eric Shipton, from the 1953 Everest Expedition which summitted the mountain that year. He was a recipient of the Polar Medal.
Noel Andrew Croft was born on 30 November 1906, St Andrews Day, in Stevenage in Hertfordshire where his father, Robert, was the local vicar. After two prep schools, he attended Lancing College, before becoming one of the founding pupils at Stowe School, and then going up to Christ Church, Oxford in 1925.
Croft participated in several Arctic expeditions.
In 1934, along with Lieutenant A.S.T. Godfrey, RE and Martin Lindsay, Croft participated in the 1934 British Trans-Greenland Expedition as the expedition photographer and dog-handler. In order to do so, he learned to speak Danish and Greenlandic and learned to be an expert dog-driver.
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Andrés de Urdaneta
Friar Andrés de Urdaneta, O.S.A., (Ordizia, Spain, November 30, 1498 – June 3, 1568, Mexico City) was a Spanish circumnavigator, explorer and Augustinian friar. As a navigator he achieved in 1536 the "second" world circumnavigation (after the first one led by Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano and their crew in 1522). Urdaneta discovered and plotted a path across the Pacific from the Philippines to Acapulco in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (present day Mexico) used by the Manila galleons, which came to be known as "Urdaneta's route."
Urdaneta was born in the town of Ordizia in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, Spain. He would have gone to sea at a young age, as was typical of the time.
Urdaneta was one of the few survivors of Loaísa Expedition to reach the Spice Islands late in the year 1526, just to be taken prisoner by the Portuguese. Undaneta spent the next eight and a half years in and around the Spice Islands, but eventually he managed to return to Europe in the Portuguese India Armada and under Portuguese guard. Upon his arrival in Lisbon on June 26, 1536, he achieved the second world circumnavigation, or rather the third or even the fourth circumnavigation in history, considering that Magellan and some of his men had been in the regions of Malaysia and Indonesia a decade before reaching the Philippines or the route taken by other crew members of Magellan's expedition and later returned to Europe after Elcano`s ship, who were also brought by the Portuguese from Moluccas and then released in Lisbon. Urdaneta accomplished his trip around the world through a journey which lasted just shy of eleven years.
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António de Andrade
Father António de Andrade (1580 – March 19, 1634) was a Jesuit priest and explorer from Portugal. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1596. From 1600 until his death in 1634 he was engaged in missionary activity in India. Andrade was the first European to cross the Himalayas and reach Tibet, establishing the first Catholic mission on Tibetan soil.
António de Andrade was born in Oleiros, Portugal. In 1600 he went to Goa, the capital of Portuguese India, where he pursued his higher studies and was ordained a priest. He was one of the Jesuits attached to the court of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, and was head of the Jesuit mission in Agra. In 1624 he left Agra, headed to Delhi where he and the Jesuit brother Manuel Marques joined a group of Hindu pilgrims bound for the temple of Badrinath located in the Northern part of the present-day Indian state of Uttarakhand. Overcoming incredible hardships in the journey they crossed the Mana pass (5608 meters) to Tibet, the first Europeans known to have done so.
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Auguste Piccard
Auguste Antoine Piccard (28 January 1884 – 24 March 1962) was a Swiss physicist, inventor and explorer.
Piccard and his twin brother Jean Felix were born in Basel, Switzerland. Showing an intense interest in science as a child, he attended the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and became a professor of physics in Brussels at the Free University of Brussels in 1922, the same year his son Jacques Piccard was born. He was a member of the Solvay Congress of 1922, 1924, 1927, 1930 and 1933.
In 1930, an interest in ballooning, and a curiosity about the upper atmosphere led him to design a spherical, pressurized aluminum gondola that would allow ascent to great altitude without requiring a pressure suit. Supported by the Belgian Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) Piccard constructed his gondola.
On 27 May 1931, Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer took off from Augsburg, Germany, and reached a record altitude of 15,785 m (51,788 ft). During this flight, Piccard was able to gather substantial data on the upper atmosphere, as well as measure cosmic rays. On 18 August 1932, launched from Dübendorf, Switzerland, Piccard and Max Cosyns made a second record-breaking ascent to 16,200 m (53,150 ft). He ultimately made a total of twenty-seven balloon flights, setting a final record of 23,000 m (75,459 ft).[citation needed]
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Bartolomeu Dias
Bartolomeu Dias (Portuguese pronunciation: [baɾtuluˈmew ˈdi.ɐʃ]; Anglicized: Bartholomew Diaz; c. 1451 – 29 May 1500 ), a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, was a Portuguese explorer. He sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, the first European known to have done so.
Bartolomeu Dias was a Knight of the royal court, superintendent of the royal warehouses, and sailing-master of the man-of-war, São Cristóvão (Saint Christopher). King John II of Portugal appointed him, on 10 October 1487, to head an expedition to sail around the southern tip of Africa in the hope of finding a trade route to India. Dias was also charged with searching for the lands ruled by Prester John, who was a fabled Christian priest and ruler.[citation needed]
Dias' ship São Cristóvão was piloted by Pêro de Alenquer. A second caravel, the São Pantaleão, was commanded by João Infante and piloted by Álvaro Martins. Dias' brother Pêro Dias was the captain of the square-rigged support ship with João de Santiago as pilot.[citation needed]
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Brendan
Saint Brendan of Clonfert or Bréanainn of Clonfert (c. 484 – c. 577) (Irish: Naomh Breandán; Icelandic: Brandanus) called "the Navigator", "the Voyager", or "the Bold" is one of the early Irish monastic saints. He is chiefly renowned for his legendary quest to the "Isle of the Blessed," also called St Brendan's Island. The Voyage of St Brendan could be called an immram (Irish navigational story). He was one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland.
Saint Brendan's feast day is celebrated on 16 May by Catholics, Anglicans, and Eastern Orthodox Christians.
In 484 Saint Brendan was born in Ciarraighe Luachra near the port of Tralee, in County Kerry, in the province of Munster, in the south-west of Ireland. He was baptised at Tubrid, near Ardfert, by Saint Erc. For five years he was educated under Saint Ita, "the Brigid of Munster", and he completed his studies under Saint Erc, who ordained him priest in 512. Between the years 512 and 530 St Brendan built monastic cells at Ardfert, and, at the foot of Mount Brandon, Shanakeel— Seana Cill, usually translated as "the old church"— also called Baalynevinoorach.
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British people
British people (also referred to as the British, Britons, or informally as Brits or Britishers) are citizens or natives of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, of any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants.British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, by birth in the UK or by descent from British nationals. When used in a historical context, the term British people refers to the ancient Britons, the indigenous inhabitants of Great Britain south of the Forth.
Although early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity. The notion of Britishness was forged during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and the First French Empire, and developed further during the Victorian era. The complex history of the formation of the United Kingdom created a "particular sense of nationhood and belonging" in Great Britain; Britishness became "superimposed on much older identities", of English, Scots and Welsh cultures, whose distinctiveness still resist notions of a homogenised British identity. Because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by unionists.
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Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (Swedish original name Carl Nilsson Linnæus, 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné (help·info), was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology. Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus (after 1761 Carolus a Linné).
Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. Linnaeus received most of his higher education at Uppsala University, and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands. He then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 60s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, and published several volumes. At the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe.
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Charles Wilkes
Charles Wilkes (April 3, 1798 – February 8, 1877) was an American naval officer and explorer. He led the United States Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 and commanded the ship in the Trent Affair during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Although credited with several "firsts", his behavior led to two convictions at court-martial.
Wilkes was born in New York City, on April 3, 1798, as the great nephew of the former Lord Mayor of London John Wilkes. His mother was Mary Seton, who died in 1802 when Charles was just three years old. As a result, Charles was raised by his aunt, Elizabeth Ann Seton, a convert to Roman Catholicism who was the first American-born woman to be canonized a saint by the Catholic Church. When Elizabeth was left widowed with five children, Charles was sent to a boarding school, and later attended Columbia College, which is the present-day Columbia University. He entered the United States Navy as a midshipman in 1818, and became a lieutenant in 1826.
In 1833, for his survey of Narragansett Bay, he was placed in charge of the Navy's Department of Charts and Instruments, out of which developed the Naval Observatory and Hydrographic Office. Wilkes' interdisciplinary expedition (1838–1842) set a physical oceanography benchmark for the office's first superintendent Matthew Fontaine Maury.
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Chris Bonington
Sir Christian John Storey Bonington, CVO, CBE, DL (born 6 August 1934, Hampstead, London) is a British mountaineer.
His career has included nineteen expeditions to the Himalayas, including four to Mount Everest and the first ascent of the south face of Annapurna.
Educated at University College School in Hampstead, he joined the Royal Fusiliers before attending Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and on graduation was commissioned in the Royal Tank Regiment in 1956. After three years in North Germany, he spent two years at the Army Outward Bound School as a mountaineering instructor.
Bonington was part of the party that made the first British ascent of the South West Pillar (aka Bonatti Pillar) of the Aiguille du Dru in 1958, and the first ascent of the Central Pillar of Freney on the south side of Mont Blanc in 1961 with Don Whillans, Ian Clough and Jan Dlugosz (Poland). In 1960 he was part of the successful joint British-Indian-Nepalese forces expedition to Annapurna II.
On leaving the British Army in 1961, he joined Van den Berghs, a division of Unilever. But he left after nine months, and became a professional mountaineer and explorer. In 1966 he was given his first assignment by the Daily Telegraph magazine to cover other expeditions, including - climbing Sangay in Ecuador; hunting Caribou with Eskimos on Baffin Island. In 1968 he accompanied Captain John Blashford-Snell and his British Army team in the attempt to make the first ever descent of the Blue Nile.
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Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus (before 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in what is today northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements in the island of Hispaniola, initiated the process of Spanish colonization, which foreshadowed the general European colonization of what became known as the "New World".
In the context of emerging western imperialism and economic competition between European kingdoms seeking wealth through the establishment of trade routes and colonies, Columbus's speculative proposal to reach the East Indies by sailing westward received the support of the Spanish crown, which saw in it a promise, however remote, of gaining the upper hand over rival powers in the contest for the lucrative spice trade with Asia. During his first voyage in 1492, instead of reaching Japan as he had intended, Columbus landed in the Bahamas archipelago, at a locale he named San Salvador. Over the course of three more voyages, Columbus visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America, claiming them for the Spanish Empire.
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Conrad Anker
Conrad Anker (born November 27, 1962) is an American rock climber, mountaineer, and author famous for his challenging ascents in the high Himalaya and Antarctica. He is a member of The North Face climbing team and also works closely with Timex Expedition as brand ambassador. In 1999, he was a key member of the search team which located the remains of legendary British climber George Mallory on Mount Everest. Anker is the climber who spotted Mallory's body. He lives in Bozeman, Montana.
Anker has also climbed notable routes in Yosemite Valley (California), Zion National Park (Utah), Baffin Island (Canada), and the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica.
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David Livingstone
David Livingstone (19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
Perhaps one of the most popular national heroes of the late 19th century in Victorian Britain, Livingstone had a mythic status, which operated on a number of interconnected levels: that of Protestant missionary martyr, that of working-class "rags to riches" inspirational story, that of scientific investigator and explorer, that of imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of commercial empire.
His fame as an explorer helped drive forward the obsession with discovering the sources of the River Nile that formed the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of the African continent. At the same time his missionary travels, "disappearance" and death in Africa, and subsequent glorification as posthumous national hero in 1874 led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European "Scramble for Africa".
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Dicuil
Dicuil, Irish monk and geographer, born in the second half of the 8th century.
The exact dates of Dicuil's birth and death unknown. Of his life nothing is known except that he belonged probably to one of the numerous Irish monasteries of the Frankish Kingdom, became acquainted, by personal observation, with the islands near England and Scotland, and wrote between 814 and 816 an astronomical, and in 825 a geographical work.
The astronomical work is a sort of computus in four books, in prose and verse, preserved only in a manuscript which formerly belonged to the monastery of Saint-Amand, and is now at Valenciennes.
More famous is the "De mensura Orbis terrae", a summary of geography, giving concise information about various lands. This work was based upon a "Mensuratio orbis" prepared by order of Theodosius II (435), a manuscript copy of which had found its way to the Carolingian court. Godescalc had already made use of this copy (781-783) in the composition of his celebrated "Evangelistarium". Dicuil draws also upon Pliny the Elder, Gaius Julius Solinus, Paulus Orosius, Isidore of Seville, and other authors, and adds the results of his own investigations.
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Ed Stafford
Ed Stafford (born 26 December 1975) is an English explorer and former British Army captain. He was also an expedition leader for extreme conservation company Trekforce.
Stafford was born in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England and raised in Leicestershire.
On 9 August 2010, he became the first person to walk the entire length of the Amazon River, documented in the 2011 TV series Walking the Amazon. Stafford's expedition began with a friend, Luke Keaton, 13, on 2 April 2008, on the southern coast of Peru. Keaton left after 3 months, and Stafford completed the journey with Gadiel "Cho" Sanchez Rivera. He undertook the attempt for several charities.
In May 2009 Stafford appeared on the cover of the Royal Geographical Society`s Geographical (magazine)
In April 2010 Stafford passed the 2-year barrier having been walking since 2 April 2008. and in May that year Stafford was made Diane Sawyer´s ABC News "Person of the Week".
Stafford's accomplishment of walking the length of the Amazon river has been described by Sir Ranulph Fiennes as being "..in the top league of expeditions past and present".
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Edmond Halley
Edmond Halley FRS (/ˈɛdmənd ˈhæli/; 8 November 1656 – 14 January 1742) was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, following in the footsteps of John Flamsteed.
Halley was born in Haggerston, Shoreditch, England. His father, Edmond Halley Sr., came from a Derbyshire family and was a wealthy soap-maker in London. As a child, Halley was very interested in mathematics. He studied at St Paul's School, and then, from 1673, at The Queen's College, Oxford. While an undergraduate, Halley published papers on the Solar System and sunspots.
On leaving Oxford, in 1676, Halley visited the south Atlantic island of Saint Helena and set up an observatory with a 24-foot-long (7.3 m) aerial telescope with the intention of studying stars from the Southern Hemisphere.. While there he observed a transit of Mercury, and realised that a similar transit of Venus could be used to determine the absolute size of the solar system. He returned to England in November 1678. In the following year he went to Danzig (Gdańsk) on behalf of the Royal Society to help resolve a dispute. Because astronomer Johannes Hevelius did not use a telescope, his observations had been questioned by Robert Hooke. Halley stayed with Hevelius and he observed and verified the quality of Hevelius' observations. The same year Halley published Catalogus Stellarum Australium which included details of 341 southern stars. These additions to present-day star maps earned him comparison with Tycho Brahe. Halley was awarded his M.A. degree at Oxford and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.
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Edward Sabine
General Sir Edward Sabine KCB FRS (14 October 1788 – 26 June 1883) was an Anglo-Irish astronomer, geophysicist, ornithologist, explorer and the 30th President of the Royal Society.
Two branches of Sabine's work are notable: Determination of the length of the seconds pendulum, a simple pendulum whose time period on the surface of the Earth is two seconds, that is, one second in each direction; and his research on the Earth's magnetic field. He led the effort to establish a system of magnetic observatories in various parts of British territory all over the globe, and much of his life was devoted to their direction, and to analyzing their observations.
While most of his research bears on the subjects just mentioned, other research deals with the birds of Greenland (Sabine's Gull is named for him), ocean temperatures, the Gulf Stream, barometric measurement of heights, arc of the meridian, glacial transport of rocks, the volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands, and various points of meteorology.
Edward Sabine was born on Great Britain Street, Dublin to Joseph Sabine, a member of a prominent Anglo-Irish family whose connections with the country can be traced back to the seventeenth century. His mother, Sarah Hunt, died when he was just one month old. His elder brother was naturalist Joseph Sabine.
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Egyptians
Egyptians (Egyptian Arabic: مَصريين IPA: [mɑsˤɾejˈjiːn]; Arabic: مِصريّون miṣriyūn) are the inhabitants and citizens of Egypt sharing a common culture and a dialect of Arabic.
Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to the Mediterranean and enclosed by desert both to the east and to the west. This unique geography has been the basis of the development of Egyptian society since antiquity. If regarded as a single ethnic group, the Egyptian people constitute one of the world's largest.
The daily language of the Egyptians is the local variety of Arabic, known as Egyptian Arabic or Masri, Also a sizable minority of Egyptian speak Sa'idi Arabic in Upper Egypt. Egyptians are predominantly adherents of Sunni Islam with a Shia minority and a significant proportion who follow native Sufi orders. A sizable minority of Egyptians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, whose liturgical language, Coptic, is the last stage of the indigenous Egyptian language.
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English people
The English (from Old English: Englisc) are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens. Their ethnonym is derived from the Angles, a Germanic people originally from Northern Germany who migrated to Britain.
Historically, the English population is descended from several genetically similar peoples—the earlier Britons (or Brythons), the Germanic tribes that settled in the area, including Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons, who founded what was to become England (from the Old English Englaland), and the later Danes, Normans and other groups. Following the Act of Union in 1707, in which the Kingdom of England became part of the Kingdom of Great Britain, English customs and identity became closely aligned with British customs and identity.
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Eric Shipton
Eric Earle Shipton CBE (1 August 1907 - 28 March 1977) was a distinguished British Himalayan mountaineer.
Born in Ceylon ( Now known as Sri Lanka ) in 1907 where his father, a tea planter, died before he was three years old. His mother buried her grief by taking Eric and his sister Marge and travelling constantly for the next five years. They moved back then back again and back and forth between Europe, India, and the East. When he was eight his mother brought him to London so that he could be educated. When he failed the entrance exam to Harrow School his mother sent him to Pyt House School in Wiltshire. His first real encounter with mountains was at 15, when he visited the Pyrenees with his family. The next summer he spent travelling in Norway with a school friend and within a year he had begun climbing seriously.
In 1928 he went to Kenya as a coffee grower, and first climbed Nelion, a peak of Mount Kenya in 1929. It was also in Kenya's community of Europeans that he met his future climbing partners Bill Tilman and Percy Wyn-Harris. Together with Wyn-Harris he climbed the twin peaks of Mount Kenya. With Frank Smythe, Shipton was amongst the first climbers to stand on the summit of Kamet, 7816 metres, in 1931, the highest peak climbed at that time. Shipton was involved with most of the Mount Everest expeditions during the 1930s and later, including Hugh Ruttledge's expeditions of 1933 and 1936, the 1935 Mt Everest expedition which was Shipton's first as leader and the first for Tenzing Norgay, and the pioneering 1951 expedition which chalked out the now famous route over the Khumbu Glacier. Shipton and Tilman also discovered the access route to the Nanda Devi sanctuary through the Rishi Ganga gorge in 1934. Their shoe-string budget expedition operated in the Kumaon-Garhwal mountains continuously from pre-monsoon to post-monsoon, and set a record for single-expedition achievement that has never been equalled.
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Erik the Red
Erik Thorvaldsson (Old Norse: Eirīkr Þōrvaldsson; 950 – c. 1003), known as Erik the Red (Old Norse: Eirīkr hinn rauði), is remembered in medieval and Icelandic saga sources as having founded the first Norse settlement in Greenland. The Icelandic tradition indicates that he was born in the Jæren district of Rogaland, Norway, as the son of Thorvald Asvaldsson, he therefore also appears, patronymically, as Erik Thorvaldsson (Eiríkr Þorvaldsson). The appellation "the Red" most likely refers to his hair color.Leif Ericson, the famous Icelandic explorer, was Erik's son.
Erik the Red's father was exiled from Norway for the crime of manslaughter. He sailed West from Norway with his family and settled in Hornstrandir in northwestern Iceland. The Icelanders later sentenced Erik to exile for three years due to "some killings" he committed around the year 982.[citation needed]
After marrying Thjodhild (Þjóðhildr), he moved to Haukadal (Hawksdale) where he built a farm. The initial confrontation happened when his thralls started a landslide on the neighboring farm belonging to Valthjof (Valþjófr). Valthjof's friend, Eyiolf the Foul (Eyjólfr saurr), killed the thralls. In return, Erik killed Eyjiolf and Holmgang-Hrafn (Hólmgöngu-Hrafn). Eyiolf's kinsmen demanded his banishment from Haukadal.
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Ernest Shackleton
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE, FRGS (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish polar explorer, one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. His first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, from which he was sent home early on health grounds. Determined to make amends for this perceived personal failure, he returned to Antarctica in 1907 as leader of the Nimrod Expedition. In January 1909 he and three companions made a southern march which established a record Farthest South latitude at 88° 23′ S, 97 geographical miles (112 statute miles, 190 km) from the South Pole, by far the closest convergence in exploration history up to that time. For this achievement, Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII on his return home.
After the race to the South Pole ended in 1912 with Roald Amundsen's conquest, Shackleton turned his attention to what he said was the one remaining great object of Antarctic journeying—the crossing of the continent from sea to sea, via the pole. To this end he made preparations for what became the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17. Disaster struck this expedition when its ship, Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and was slowly crushed before the shore parties could be landed. There followed a sequence of exploits, and an ultimate escape with no lives lost, that would eventually assure Shackleton's heroic status, although this was not immediately evident. In 1921 he went back to the Antarctic with the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition, intending to carry out a programme of scientific and survey activities. Before the expedition could begin this work Shackleton died of a heart attack while his ship, Quest, was moored in South Georgia. At his wife's request he was buried there.
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Evliya Çelebi
Evliya Çelebi (March 25(?), 1611 – 1682) (Ottoman Turkish:اوليا چلبى) was an Ottoman Turkish traveler who journeyed through the territory of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands over a period of forty years.
Evliya Çelebi was born in Constantinople (present day Istanbul) in 1611 to a family from Kütahya. His father was Derviş Mehmed Zilli, a jeweller for the Ottoman court. His mother was a tribeswoman, a relative of the later grand vizier Melek Ahmed Pasha. Coming from a wealthy family, he received a court education by the Imperial ulema. He may have joined the Gülşenî sufi order; evidence for this claim comes from his intimate knowledge of its lodge in Cairo and from a graffito referring to himself as "Evliya-yı Gülşenî" (Evliya of the Gülşenî)[citation needed]. He began his travels in Constantinople, taking notes on buildings, markets, customs and culture; in 1640, he started his first journey outside the city. His collection of notes from all of his travels formed a ten-volume work called the Seyahatname (Book of Travels). He lived by his wits, providing religious knowledge and entertainment to Ottoman grandees. He fought the Hapsburgs in Transylvania. While he was a devout Muslim who could recite the Koran, he was opposed to fanaticism and joked freely about Islam. Çelebi refused to take an official job that would keep him from travelling.
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Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan (Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães, IPA: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃w ðɨ mɐɣɐˈʎɐ̃jʃ]; Spanish: Fernando de Magallanes, IPA: [ferˈnando ðe maɣaˈʎanes]; c. 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in Sabrosa, in northern Portugal, and served King Charles I of Spain in search of a westward route to the "Spice Islands" (modern Maluku Islands in Indonesia).
Magellan's expedition of 1519–1522 became the first expedition to sail from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean (then named "peaceful sea" by Magellan; the passage being made via the Strait of Magellan), and the first to cross the Pacific. It also completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth, although Magellan himself did not complete the entire voyage, being killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines. (For background see Exploration of the Pacific).
Magellan also gives his name to the Magellanic Penguin, which he was the first European to note, and the Magellanic clouds, now known to be nearby dwarf galaxies.
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Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral (1540 – 27 January 1596) was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He also carried out the second circumnavigation of the world, from 1577 to 1580. He died of dysentery in January 1596 after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico.
His exploits were legendary, making him a hero to the English but a pirate to the Spaniards to whom he was known as El Draque, 'Draque' being the Spanish pronunciation of 'Drake'. His name in Latinised form was Franciscus Draco ('Francis the Dragon'). King Philip II was claimed to have offered a reward of 20,000 ducats, about £4,000,000 (US$6.5M) by modern standards, for his life.
Francis Drake was born in Tavistock, Devon, in February or March 1544 at the earliest, when his namesake godfather Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford was but age 17. Although Drake's birth is not formally recorded, it is known that he was born while the Six Articles were in force. "Drake was two and twenty when he obtained the command of the Judith" (1566). This would date his birth to 1544. As with many of Drake's contemporaries, the exact date of his birth is unknown and could be as early as 1535, the 1540 date being extrapolated from two portraits: one a miniature painted by Nicholas Hilliard in 1581 when he was allegedly 42, the other painted in 1594 when he was said to be 53.
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Francisco Pizarro
Francisco Pizarro González (c. 1471 or 1476 – 26 June 1541) was born in Trujillo, Spain, the illegitimate son of Gonzalo Pizarro, an infantry colonel, and Francisca González, a woman of poor means. His exact birth date is uncertain, but is believed to be sometime in the 1470s, probably 1471. Scant attention was paid to his education and he grew up illiterate. He was a distant cousin of Hernán Cortés. On 10 November 1509, Pizarro sailed from Spain to the New World with Alonzo de Ojeda on an expedition to Urabí. He sailed to Cartagena and joined the fleet of Martin Fernández de Encíso, and, in 1513, accompanied Balboa to the Pacific. In 1514, he found a supporter in Pedrarias Dávila, the Governor of Castilla de Oro, and was rewarded for his role in the arrest of Balboa with the positions of mayor and magistrate in Panama City, serving from 1519 to 1523.
Reports of Peru's riches and Cortés's success in Mexico tantalized Pizarro and he undertook two expeditions to conquer the Incan Empire in 1524 and in 1526. Both failed as a result of native hostilities, bad weather, and lack of provisions. Pedro de los Ríos, the Governor of Panama, made an effort to recall Pizarro, but the conquistador resisted and remained in the south. In April 1528, he reached northern Peru and found the natives rich with precious metals. This discovery gave Pizarro the motivation to plan a third expedition to conquer Peru, and he returned to Panama to make arrangements, but the Governor refused to grant permission for the project. Pizarro returned to Spain to appeal directly to King Charles I. His plea was successful, and he received not only a license for the proposed expedition but considerable authority over any lands conquered during the venture. He was joined by family and friends, and the expedition left Panama in 1530.
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French people
The French (French: Français) are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups. Within France, the French are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence.
However, the word can also refer to people of French descent who are found in other countries, with significant French-speaking population groups or not, such as Argentina (French Argentines), Brazil (French Brazilians), French West Indies (the French Caribbean people), Canada (French Canadians) and the United States (French Americans), and some of them have a French cultural identity. The United Kingdom also has a large French population, mainly in England, and due to historic relations and immigration.
To be French, according to the first article of the Constitution, is to be a citizen of France, regardless of one's origin, race, or religion (sans distinction d'origine, de race ou de religion). According to its principles, France has devoted herself to the destiny of a proposition nation, a generic territory where people are bounded only by the French language and the assumed willingness to live together, as defined by Ernest Renan's "plébiscite de tous les jours" ("daily referendum" on the willingness to live together, in Renan's 1882 essay "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?").
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Freya Stark
Dame Freya Madeline Stark, Mrs Perowne, DBE (born 31 January 1893, Paris, France — died 9 May 1993, Asolo, Italy) was a British explorer and travel writer. She wrote more than two dozen books on her travels in the Middle East and Afghanistan, as well as several autobiographic works and essays. She was one of the first outsiders to travel through the southern Arabian deserts.
Freya Madeline Stark was born on 31 January 1893 in Paris, where her parents were studying art. Her mother, Flora, was an Italian of Polish/German descent; her father, Robert, an English painter from Devon. Stark spent much of her childhood in northern Italy, helped by the fact that Pen Browning, a friend of her father, had bought three houses in Asolo. Her maternal grandmother lived in Genoa. For her ninth birthday she received a copy of One Thousand and One Nights, and became fascinated with the Orient. She was often ill while young and confined to the house, so she found an outlet in reading. She delighted in reading French, in particular Dumas, and taught herself Latin. When she was 13 she had an accident in a factory in Italy, when her hair got caught in a machine, and she had to spend four months getting skin grafts in hospital, which left her face slightly disfigured.
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Friar Julian
Friar Julian (Hungarian: Julianus barát) was one of a group of Hungarian Dominican friars who, in 1235, left Hungary in order to find those Magyars who — according to the chronicles — remained in the eastern homeland. After travelling a great distance, Friar Julian reached the capital of Volga Bulgaria, where he was told that the Magyars lived only two days' travel away. Julian found them, and despite the gap of at least 300-400 years since the split between the Magyars that invaded and settled in Pannonia and those that were found in Bashkiria, their language remained mutually intelligible, and they were able to communicate. Julian named the old country Magna Hungaria or Great Hungary. He became aware of stories about the infamous Tartars, who were the enemies of the eastern Magyars and Bulgars. Two years after the original journey, Julian returned to Magna Hungaria, only to find it had been devastated by the Mongol Tartars. He returned to his kingdom with news of mortal danger and a Mongol ultimatum to Hungary.
The Dominican order was established in Hungary in 1221 with the aim of evangelizing the East, which simultaneously raised the issue of discovering the Hungarians who had remained on the native soil. The significance of Julian’s travels: he was the first one to bring valid information about Hungarians living in Magna Hungaria, which contributes a lot to research on Hungarian history, he was the first one to bring news on the upcoming Tartar invasion on Europe, he was the first European traveler who gathered valid information on Asia, and his descriptions are of great importance from the geographical aspect, which gave essential motivation to future explorers and researchers.
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Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen ( /ˈfrɪd.tʃɒf ˈnænsən/ FRID-choff NAN-sən; 10 October 1861 – 13 May 1930) was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a record northern latitude of 86°14′ during his North Pole expedition of 1893–96. Although he retired from exploration after his return to Norway, his techniques of polar travel and his innovations in equipment and clothing influenced a generation of subsequent Arctic and Antarctic expeditions.
Nansen studied zoology at the Royal Frederick University, and later worked as a curator at the Bergen Museum where his research on the central nervous system of lower marine creatures earned him a doctorate and helped establish modern theories of neurology. After 1896 his main scientific interest switched to oceanography; in the course of his research he made many scientific cruises, mainly in the North Atlantic, and contributed to the development of modern oceanographic equipment. As one of his country's leading citizens, in 1905 Nansen spoke out for the ending of Norway's union with Sweden, and was instrumental in persuading Prince Charles of Denmark to accept the throne of the newly independent Norway. Between 1906 and 1908 he served as the Norwegian representative in London, where he helped negotiate the Integrity Treaty that guaranteed Norway's independent status.
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George Comer
Captain George Comer (April 1858 – 1937) was considered the most famous American whaling captain of Hudson Bay, and the world's foremost authority on Hudson Bay Inuit in the early 20th century.
Comer was a polar explorer, whaler/sealer, ethnologist, cartographer, author, and photographer. He made 14 Arctic and three Antarctic voyages in his lifetime. These expeditions (ca. 1875-1919) commonly began in New London, Connecticut or New Bedford, Massachusetts. Comer's circle of friends and colleagues included other notable explorers of the time, such as Robert Peary and Capt. Frederick Cook, and his mentor, Franz Boas, the "Father of American Anthropology".
Comer was born in Quebec City, Quebec in 1858. His father was English, and his mother was Irish. The family immigrated to the United States in 1860 and Comer grew up in East Haddam, Connecticut. He attended school for only two years. After Comer's father was lost at sea, his mother couldn't support the children. Subsequently, Comer spent time in an orphanage and an East Haddam foster home. In 1877, Comer (age 19), married Julia Chipman (age 20; born in Pennsylvania) and they made their home on Mount Parnassus Road in East Haddam. They had two children: daughter, Nellie G. (born April 1878), and son, Thomas L. (April 1886 - 1930), a seaship officer.
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George Vancouver
Captain George Vancouver RN (22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was an English officer of the British Royal Navy, best known for his 1791-95 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of contemporary Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. He also explored the Hawaiian Islands and the southwest coast of Australia.
Vancouver Island, Canada; the cities of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Vancouver, Washington, US; and Mount Vancouver on the Yukon/Alaska border; are named after him.
Vancouver's first naval service was as a midshipman aboard HMS Resolution, on James Cook's second voyage (1772–1775) searching for Terra Australis. He also accompanied Cook's third voyage (1776–1778), this time aboard Resolution's sister ship, HMS Discovery and the first European sighting and exploration of the Hawaiian Islands. Upon his return to Britain in 1779, Vancouver was commissioned as a lieutenant and posted aboard the sloop HMS Martin surveying coastlines.
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Germans
The Germans (Deutsche) are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages. Legally, Germans are citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, about 66–75 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry mainly in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Argentina, France, Russia, Chile, Poland, Australia and Romania who most likely are not native speakers of German. Thus, the total number of Germans worldwide lies between 66 and 160 million, depending on the criteria applied (native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans, partial German ancestry, etc.).
Today, peoples from countries with a German-speaking majority or significant German-speaking population groups other than Germany, such as Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg, have developed their own national identity and usually do not refer to themselves as "Germans" in a modern context.
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Harry De Windt
Captain Harry Willes Darell de Windt (9 April 1856, Paris - 30 November 1933, Bournemouth) was the aide-de-camp to his brother-in-law Charles Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak (Harry's sister Margaret was Brooke's wife), and is best known as an explorer and travel writer. His books were published under the name of Harry de Windt.
Harry de Windt was the son of Captain Joseph Clayton Jennyns de Windt, of Blunston Hall, Highworth. He was admitted to Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1875, but did not take a degree, travelling with his brother-in-law from 1876 to 1878. He was married several times, his first wife was Frances Laura Arabella Long, sister to the 1st Viscount Long of Wraxall, whom he married in London in 1882. They were divorced in 1888. There was one child from this union, a daughter, Margaret Maude. Harry married (2ndly) Hilda Frances E Clark in 1899. She died in 1924. In 1927 Harry married the actress Charlotte Elizabeth Ihle, better known by her stage name, Elaine Inescourt.
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Henry Hudson
Henry Hudson (c. 1560s/70s – 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century.
Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a prospective Northwest Passage to Cathay (today's China) via a route above the Arctic Circle. Hudson explored the region around modern New York metropolitan area while looking for a western route to Asia under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company. He explored the river which eventually was named for him, and laid thereby the foundation for Dutch colonization of the region.
Hudson discovered a strait and immense bay on his final expedition while searching for the Northwest Passage. In 1611, after wintering on the shore of James Bay, Hudson wanted to press on to the west, but most of his crew mutinied. The mutineers cast Hudson, his son and 7 others adrift; the Hudsons, and those cast off at their side, were never seen again.
Details of Hudson’s birth and early life are mostly unknown. Some sources have identified Hudson as having been born in about 1565, but others date his birth to around 1570. Other historians assert even less certainty; Mancall, for instance, states that '[Hudson] was probably born in the 1560s,” while Pennington gives no date at all. Hudson is thought[by whom?] to have spent many years at sea, beginning as a cabin boy and gradually working his way up to ship's captain.
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Henry Morton Stanley
Sir Henry Morton Stanley, GCB, born John Rowlands (28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904), was a Welsh journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and his search for David Livingstone. Upon finding Livingstone, Stanley allegedly uttered the now-famous greeting, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
When Stanley was born in Denbigh, Wales, his mother, Elizabeth Parry, was 19 years old. He never knew his father, who died within a few weeks of his birth; there is some doubt as to his true parentage. His parents were unmarried, so his birth certificate refers to him as a bastard and the stigma of illegitimacy weighed heavily upon him all his life.
Originally taking his father's name of Rowlands, Stanley was brought up by his grandfather until the age of five. When his guardian died, Stanley stayed at first with cousins and nieces for a short time, but was eventually sent to St. Asaph Union Workhouse for the poor, where overcrowding and lack of supervision resulted in frequent abuse by the older boys. When he was ten, his mother and two siblings stayed for a short while in this workhouse, without Stanley realising who they were. He stayed until the age of 15. After completing an elementary education, he was employed as a pupil teacher in a National School.
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Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca (Spanish pronunciation: [erˈnaŋ korˈtes de monˈroj i piˈθaro]; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers that began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Born in Medellín, Spain, to a family of lesser nobility, Cortés chose to pursue a livelihood in the New World. He went to Hispaniola and later to Cuba, where he received an encomienda and, for a short time, became alcalde (magistrate) of the second Spanish town founded on the island. In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the mainland, an expedition which he partly funded. His enmity with the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, resulted in the recall of the expedition at the last moment, an order which Cortés ignored. Arriving on the continent, Cortés executed a successful strategy of allying with some indigenous peoples against others. He also used a native woman, Doña Marina, as an interpreter; she would later bear Cortés a son. When the Governor of Cuba sent emissaries to arrest Cortés, he fought them and won, using the extra troops as reinforcements. Cortés wrote letters directly to the king asking to be acknowledged for his successes instead of punished for mutiny. After he overthrew the Aztec Empire, Cortés was awarded the title of Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, while the more prestigious title of Viceroy was given to a high-ranking nobleman, Antonio de Mendoza. In 1541 Cortés returned to Spain, where he died peacefully but embittered, six years later.
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Hiram Bingham III
Hiram Bingham, formally Hiram Bingham III, (November 19, 1875 – June 6, 1956) was an academic, explorer, treasure hunter and politician from the United States. He made public the existence of the Quechua citadel of Machu Picchu in 1911 with the guidance of local indigenous farmers. Later, Bingham served as a member of the United States Senate.
Bingham was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Hiram Bingham II (1831–1908), an early Protestant missionary to the Kingdom of Hawai'i, the grandson of Hiram Bingham I (1789–1869), another missionary. He attended O'ahu College, now known as Punahou School in Hawai'i from 1882 to 1892. He went to the United States in his teens in order to complete his education, entering Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, from which he graduated in 1894. He obtained a B.A. degree from Yale University in 1898, a degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1900, and a Ph. D. degree from Harvard University in 1905. While at Yale, Bingham was a member of Acacia Fraternity. He taught history and politics at Harvard and then served as preceptor under Woodrow Wilson at Princeton University. In 1907, Yale University appointed Bingham III as a lecturer in South American history.
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Hungarian people
Hungarians, also known as Magyars (Hungarian: magyarok), are a nation and ethnic group who speak Hungarian and are primarily associated with Hungary. There are around 14-15 million Hungarians, of whom 10 million live in today's Hungary (as of 2011). About 2.2 million Hungarians live in areas that were part of the Kingdom of Hungary before the 1918-1920 dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the Treaty of Trianon, and are now parts of Hungary's seven neighbour countries, especially Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine. Significant groups of people with Hungarian ancestry live in various other parts of the world, most of them in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Canada and Australia. Unlike the Hungarians living on the former territory of pre-1918-20 Kingdom of Hungary, only some of the ethnic Hungarians in other areas preserve the Hungarian language and traditions. The Hungarians can be classified into several subgroups according to local linguistic and cultural characteristics; subgroups with distinct identities include the Székely, the Csángó, the Palóc, and the Jassic people.
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Ibn Battuta
Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Lawātī al-Ţanjī ibn Baṭūṭah (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد بن عبد الله اللواتي الطنجي بن بطوطة), or simply Ibn Battuta (ابن بطوطة), also known as Shams ad-Din (February 25, 1304–1368 or 1369), was a Berber Muslim Moroccan explorer, known for his extensive travels, accounts of which were published in the Rihla (lit. "Journey"). Over a period of thirty years, he visited most of the known Islamic world as well as many non-Muslim lands; his journeys including trips to North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the West, and to the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China in the East, a distance surpassing threefold his near-contemporary Marco Polo. Ibn Battuta is considered one of the greatest travellers of all time. He journeyed more than 75,000 miles (121,000 km), a figure unsurpassed by any individual explorer until the coming of the Steam Age some 450 years later.
All that is known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from the autobiographical information included in the account of his travels. Ibn Battuta was born into a Berber family of Islamic legal scholars in Tangier, Morocco, on 25 February 1304, during the reign of the Marinid dynasty. As a young man he would have studied at a Sunni Maliki madh'hab, (Islamic jurisprudence school), the dominant form of education in North Africa at that time. In June 1325, at the age of twenty-one, Ibn Battuta set off from his hometown on a hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, a journey that would take sixteen months. He would not see Morocco again for twenty-four years.
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Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as "indigenous" according to one of the various definitions of the term, though there is no universally accepted definition.
In the late twentieth century, the term began to be used primarily to refer to ethnic groups that have historical ties to groups that existed in a territory prior to colonization or formation of a nation state, and which normally preserve a degree of cultural and political separation from the mainstream culture and political system of the nation state within the border of which the indigenous group is located. The political sense of the term defines these groups as particularly vulnerable to exploitation and oppression by nation states. As a result, a special set of political rights in accordance with international law have been set forth by international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank. The United Nations have issued a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to protect the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their culture, identity, language, employment, health, education and natural resources. Depending on which precise definition of "indigenous people" used, and on the census, estimates of a world total population of Indigenous people range from 220 million Indigenous peoples in 1997 to 350 million in 2004.
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Iraqi people
The Iraqi people (Arabic: العراقيون ʿIrāqīyūn, Kurdish: گهلی عیراق Îraqîyan, Aramaic: ܥܡܐ ܥܝܪܩܝܐ ʿIrāqāyā) or Mesopotamian people (Arabic: شعب بلاد ما بين النهرين) are the native inhabitants of the country of Iraq, (also known as Mesopotamia), and their related diaspora. From late Assyrian and Babylonian times until the early Islamic era, the Iraqi people spoke Aramaic but also witnessed a minority Arab presence.
Arabic had been a minority language in Iraq since the 8th century BC, it was spoken in Hatra in the 1st and 2nd centuries, and by Iraqi Christians in Al-Hirah from the 3rd century, and from the 8th century following the Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia it became the common language of Iraqi Muslims, due to Arabic being the language of the Qur'an and the Caliphate. This change was facilitated by the fact that Arabic being a Semitic language, shared a close resemblance to Iraq's traditional languages of Akkadian and Aramaic. Some of Iraq's Christians and Mandaeans retained dialects of Aramaic, since it remained the liturgical language of their faiths. Kurdish-speaking Iraqis live in the mountainous Zagros region of northeast Iraq to the east of the upper Tigris. The Kurds and Arabs of Mesopotamia have interacted and intermarried for well over a millennium. Modern genetic studies indicate that Iraqi Arabs and Kurds are very closely related. Arabic and Kurdish are Iraq's national languages.
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Irish people
The Irish people (Irish: Muintir na hÉireann or na hÉireannaigh; Ulster-Scots: Airisch or Airish fowk) are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years (according to archaeological studies, see Prehistoric Ireland). The Irish people's earliest ancestors are recorded in legends – they are claimed to be descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha Dé Danann and the Milesians.Lebor Gabála Érenn, a book of Irish mythology tells that Tuatha Dé Dananns were Scythian descendants.
The main groups that interacted with the Irish in the Middle Ages include the Picts, Scots, and the Vikings. Due to this contact, Icelanders are noted for having some Irish descent. The Anglo-Norman invasion of the High Middle Ages, the English plantations and the subsequent English rule of the country introduced the Normans and Flemish into Ireland. Welsh, Picts, Bretons, and small parties of Gauls and even Anglo-Saxons are known in Ireland from much earlier times.
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Isabella Bird
Isabella Lucy Bird (15 October 1831 – 7 October 1904) was a nineteenth-century English explorer, writer, and a natural historian.
Bird was born in Boroughbridge in 1831 and grew up in Tattenhall, Cheshire. As her father Edward was a Church of England minister, the family moved several times across Britain as he received different parish postings, most notably in 1848 when he was replaced as vicar of St. Thomas' when his parishioners objected to the style of his ministry.
Bird was a sickly child and spent her entire life struggling with various diseases. Much of her illness may have been psychogenic, for when she was doing exactly what she wanted she was almost never ill. Her real desire was to travel. In 1854, Bird's father gave her £100 and she went to visit relatives in America. She was allowed to stay until her money ran out. She detailed the journey anonymously in her first book The Englishwoman in America, published in 1856. The following year, she went to Canada and then toured Scotland.
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Jacques Cartier
Jacques Cartier (December 31, 1491 – September 1, 1557) was a French explorer of Breton origin who claimed what is now Canada for France. He was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after the Iroquois names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona (Quebec City) and at Hochelaga (Montreal Island).
Jacques Cartier was born in 1491 in Saint-Malo, the port on the extreme north-east coast of Brittany. Cartier, who was a respectable mariner, improved his social status in 1520 by marrying Mary Catherine des Granches, member of a leading family. His good name in Saint-Malo is recognized by its frequent appearance in baptismal registers as godfather or witness.
In 1534, the year the Duchy of Brittany was formally united with France in the Edict of Union, Cartier was introduced to King Francis I by Jean le Veneur, bishop of Saint-Malo and abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, at the Manoir de Brion. The king had previously invited (although not formally commissioned) the Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the eastern coast of North America on behalf of France in 1524. Le Veneur cited voyages to Newfoundland and Brazil as proof of Cartier's ability to "lead ships to the discovery of new lands in the New World".
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James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, as well as the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.
Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755. He saw action in the Seven Years' War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This helped bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society. This notice came at a crucial moment in both Cook's career and the direction of British overseas exploration, and led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HM Bark Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages.
In three voyages Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail and on a scale not previously achieved. As he progressed on his voyages of discovery he surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage and an ability to lead men in adverse conditions.
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James of Ireland
James of Ireland, Irish friar and explorer, fl. 1316-1330.
James of Ireland was the companion of Odoric of Pordenone on his travels as far as Sumatra and China. The commune of Udine, (Friuli in north-east Italy), voted a sum of money to James for travelling with their fellow citizen.
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John Cabot
John Cabot (known in Italian as Giovanni Caboto; c. 1450 – c. 1499) was an Italian navigator and explorer whose 1497 discovery of parts of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England is commonly held to have been the first European encounter with the continent of North America since the Norse Vikings visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. The official position of the Canadian and United Kingdom governments is that he landed on the island of Newfoundland.
Cabot's birthplace is in Italy. In Italy he is known today as Giovanni Caboto, in England as John Cabot, in France as Jean Cabot, and in Spain as Juan Caboto. The non-Italian forms reflect references to him in the related 15th-century documents. Only one set of documents has been found bearing his signature. These are Venetian testamentary documents of 1484, on which he signed as "Zuan Chabotto", Zuan being a form of John typical to Venice. That he continued to use this form in England, at least among Italians, is supported by two letters referring to him that were written by others in London in 1497. One, from a London-based Venetian, gives Cabot's first name as Zuam. Another, from the Milanese Ambassador, spells his name Zoane. In a document identified in October 2010, he is described by his Italian banker in London as 'Giovanni Chabbote', this being the only known contemporary document to use this version of his first name.
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John Franklin
Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin KCH FRGS RN (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. Franklin also served as governor of Tasmania for several years. In his last expedition, he disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate a section of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic. The entire crew perished from starvation, hypothermia, tuberculosis, lead poisoning and scurvy, and the expedition's icebound ships were abandoned in desperation.[citation needed]
Franklin was born in Spilsby, Lincolnshire, in 1786 and educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth. John Franklin was the ninth of twelve children. One of his sisters was the mother of Emily Tennyson. Franklin's father initially opposed his son's interest in a career at sea. However, Franklin was determined and his father reluctantly allowed him to go on a trial voyage with a merchant ship. This hardened young Franklin's resolve, so at the age of 14 his father secured him a Royal Navy appointment on HMS Polyphemus. Franklin was later present at a number of historic voyages and naval battles. These included the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, an expedition to explore the coast of Australia on HMS Investigator with his uncle, Captain Matthew Flinders, a return to the Napoleonic Wars, serving aboard HMS Bellerophon at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and he was at the Battle of New Orleans.
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José María Narváez
José María Narváez (1768 – August 4, 1840) was a Spanish naval officer, explorer, and navigator notable for his work in the Pacific Northwest of present-day Canada. In 1791, as commander of the schooner Santa Saturnina, he led the first European exploration of the Strait of Georgia, including a landing on present-day British Columbia's Sunshine Coast. He also entered Burrard Inlet, the site of present-day Vancouver, British Columbia.
Narváez was born in Cádiz, Spain in 1768. He was admitted to the Royal (Naval) Academy for midshipmen in 1782. Within the year, he was at sea and engaged in naval combat.
In 1784 Narváez was sent to New Spain, where his first station was at Havana. For three years he served aboard supply ships working the ports of Veracruz, New Orleans, Mantanzas, Campeche, Roatán, and Trujillo. In November 1787, he was promoted to segundo piloto havilitado (qualified second pilot—piloto in Spanish being equivalent to master in English) and reassigned to San Blas, at the time the main Spanish naval base on the west coast of Mexico. He arrived in early 1788. Within the month, he sailed north as a pilot to Gonzalo López de Haro, commander of the San Carlos.
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Juan Ponce de León
Juan Ponce de León (/ˈpɒns də ˈliən/Spanish pronunciation: [ˈponθe ðe leˈon]; 1474 – July 1521) was a Spanish explorer. He became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish crown. He led the first European expedition to Florida, which he named. He is associated with the legend of the Fountain of Youth, reputed to be in Florida.
Juan Ponce de León was born in the village of Santervás de Campos in the northern part of what is now the Spanish province of Valladolid. Although early historians placed his birth in 1475, more recent evidence shows he was likely born in 1474. The surname 'Ponce de León' is of Basque origin, and dates from the XI century. He was descended from Ponce Vélaz, a nobleman from León, who was the son of Vela Gutiérrez and Sancha de Cabrera. Vela Gutiérrez was the great-grandson of Vermudo Nuñez, fifth child of Nuño Vela, count of Álava, who was descended from the kings of Vasconia.
The identity of his parents is unknown, but he appears to have been a member of a distinguished and influential noble family. His relatives included Rodrigo Ponce de León, Marquis of Cádiz, a celebrated figure in the Moorish wars.
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Kazimierz Nowak
Kazimierz Nowak (January 11, 1897 – October 13, 1937) – was a Polish traveller, correspondent and photographer, born in Stryi. After the First World War he lived in Poznań.
From 1931 to 1936, he traveled alone, on foot and by bicycle across Africa, covering a distance of 40,000 km: from Libya to South Africa (Cape Agulhas) and back to Algeria [1]. He seems to be the only man in the world to have done it. His accounts of the travel were first published jointly as late as in 2000, as a book entitled Rowerem i pieszo przez Czarny Ląd (By bicycle and on foot across the Black Continent). He died in Poznań from pneumonia as a consequence of emaciation of the body due to the travel, malaria and a leg surgery.
On the 25th of November 2006 in the Hall of Poznań Main Railway Station, where Kazimierz Nowak began and ended his travel, Ryszard Kapuściński unveiled a commemorative plaque dedicated to him. This was because he discovered the naked mole rat and his extensive research into the breeding of these animals in Africa. In his speech accompanying the ceremony he described Nowak as follows:
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Kira Salak
Kira Salak (born September 4, 1971) is an American writer, adventurer, and journalist known for her travels in Mali and Papua New Guinea. She has written two books of nonfiction and a book of fiction based on her travels and is a contributing editor at National Geographic magazine.
Kira Salak was born in September 4, 1971 in a western suburb of Chicago. Her mother was a waitress and her father repaired mainframe computers. When Salak was 13, her parents sent her to boarding school in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin where she participated in cross-country activities and set a state level track record when she was 14. Though she began training for National and Olympic trials, she dropped out of the sport and decided to travel instead. Kira Salak received her B.F.A. in writing, literature and publishing from Emerson College. She received her M.F.A. in creative writing (fiction) from the University of Arizona. In 2004, she graduated from the University of Missouri, with a Ph.D. in English; her two areas of specialization were 20th century American prose literature and travel literature.
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Knud Rasmussen
Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen (June 7, 1879 – December 21, 1933) was a Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" and was the first European to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled. He remains well known in Greenland, Denmark and among Canadian Inuit.
Rasmussen was born in Ilulissat, Greenland, the son of a Danish missionary, the vicar Christian Rasmussen, and an Inuit- Danish mother, Lovise Rasmussen (née Fleischer). He had two siblings, including a brother, Peter Lim. Rasmussen spent his early years in Greenland among the Kalaallit (Inuit) where he learned from an early age to speak the language (Kalaallisut), hunt, drive dog sleds and live in harsh Arctic conditions. "My playmates were native Greenlanders; from the earliest boyhood I played and worked with the hunters, so even the hardships of the most strenuous sledge-trips became pleasant routine for me." He was later educated in Lynge, North Zealand, Denmark. Between 1898 and 1900 he pursued an unsuccessful career as an actor and opera singer.
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Leif Ericson
Leif Ericson ( /ˈleɪf/ LAYF or /ˈliːf/ LEEF; Old Norse: Leifr Eiríksson; Icelandic: Leifur Eiríksson; Norwegian: Leiv Eiriksson c. 970 – c. 1020) was a Norseexplorer regarded as the first European to land in North America (excluding Greenland), nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus. According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, tentatively identified with the Norse L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada.
It is believed that Leif was born around the 970s—the son of mother Thjodhild and father Erik the Red, an explorer and outlaw from Western Norway. Erik founded the first Norse colonies in Greenland, and was based at the family estate Brattahlíð in the so-called Eastern Settlement, where Leif had his upbringing. Leif had two known sons: Thorgils, born to noblewoman Thorgunna in the Hebrides; and Thorkell, who succeeded Leif as chieftain of the Greenland settlement.
Leif was the son of Erik the Red and his wife Thjodhild, and the grandson of Thorvald Asvaldsson. His year of birth is most often given as c. 970 or c. 980. Though Leif's birthplace is not accounted for in the sagas, it is likely he was born in Iceland, where his parents met—probably somewhere in Breiðafjörður, and possibly at the farm Haukadal where Thjodhild's family is said to have been based. Leif had two brothers, Thorstein and Thorvald, and a sister, Freydís.
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Liv Arnesen
Liv Ragnheim Arnesen (born June 1, 1953) is a Norwegian cross-country skier, adventurer, guide, and motivational speaker. Arnesen led the first unsupported women’s crossing of the Greenland Ice Cap in 1992. In 1994, she made international headlines becoming the first woman in the world to ski solo and unsupported to the South pole. – a 50-day expedition of 745 miles (1,200 km).
Arnesen grew up in Bærum, Norway on the outskirts of Oslo where at an early age, her parents immersed her in their passions: cross-country skiing and polar history. At an early age, Arnesen acquired her taste for the great wide open spaces while spending winters and Easter holidays in the Norwegian mountains ]. Her love of athletics and the outdoors eventually led Arnesen to compete in orienteering and cross-country skiing, as well as to coach high school students in advanced-level cross-country skiing. At the age of 9, Liv read about Roald Amundsen’s expedition to the South Pole [].
In 1992, Liv took part in a team which became the first all-woman team to make an unsupported crossing of the Greenland icecap.
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Marco Polo
Marco Polo (i/ˈmɑrkoʊ ˈpoʊloʊ/; Italian pronunciation: [ˈmarko ˈpɔːlo]; c. 1254 – January 9, 1324) was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for the first time. The three of them embarked on an epic journey to Asia, returning after 24 years to find Venice at war with Genoa; Marco was imprisoned, and dictated his stories to a cellmate. He was released in 1299, became a wealthy merchant, married and had three children. He died in 1324, and was buried in San Lorenzo.
Their pioneering journey inspired Christopher Columbus and others. Marco Polo's other legacies include Venice Marco Polo Airport, the Marco Polo sheep, and several books and films. He also had an influence on European cartography, leading to the introduction of the Fra Mauro map.
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Mary Kingsley
Mary Henrietta Kingsley (13 October 1862 – 3 June 1900) was an English ethnographic and scientific writer and explorer whose travels throughout West Africa and resulting work helped shape European perceptions of African cultures and British imperialism.
Kingsley was born in Islington, London on 13 October 1862, the daughter and oldest child of doctor, traveller, and writer George Kingsley and Mary Bailey. Notably, she comes from a family of writers, as she was also the niece of novelists Charles Kingsley and Henry Kingsley. The family moved to Highgate less than a year after her birth, the same home where her brother Charles George R. ("Charley") Kingsley was born in 1866, and by 1881 were living in Southwood House, Bexley in Kent.
Her father was a doctor and worked for George Herbert, 13th Earl of Pembroke and other aristocrats, so he was regularly away from home on his excursions. During these voyages he was able to collect information for his studies. Dr. Kingsley and Lord Dunraven ventured to North America between 1870 and 1875, during which Kingsley was offered the opportunity to join American General Custer and his men into Native American lands. Later reports describing the massacre of Custer's party left the Kingsley family at home in England terrified, but they were relieved to discover later that bad weather had kept Dr. Kingsley from joining the Custer party. It is possible that her father's views on injustices faced by the Native Americans helped shape Mary's later opinions on British cultural imperialism in West Africa.
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Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders RN (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a distinguished navigator and cartographer, who was the first to circumnavigate Australia and identify it as a continent.
On his first voyage to New South Wales, he made friends with the ship's surgeon George Bass, and the two of them presently sailed through what became the Bass Strait, confirming that Tasmania was an island. In 1801 he was commissioned to chart the whole coastline of New Holland, and he specially noted the fertile land around Port Phillip, today's Melbourne.
Heading back to England in 1803, his vessel needed urgent repairs at Mauritius. Although Britain and France were at war, Flinders thought the scientific nature of his work would ensure safe passage, but a suspicious governor kept him under arrest for more than six years. In captivity, he recorded details of his voyages for future publication, and put forward his rationale for naming the new continent 'Australia', as an umbrella-term for New Holland and New South Wales - a suggestion taken up later by Governor Macquarie.
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Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774 – October 11, 1809) was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark. Their mission was to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, establish trade and sovereignty over the natives near the Missouri River, and claim the Pacific Northwest and Oregon territory for the United States before European nations. They also collected scientific data, and information on indigenous nations. President Thomas Jefferson appointed him Governor of Upper Louisiana in 1806.
Meriwether Lewis was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, in the present-day community of Ivy. He was the son of Lt. William Lewis of Locust Hill (1733 – November 17, 1779), who was of Welsh ancestry, and Lucy Meriwether (February 4, 1752 – September 8, 1837), daughter of Thomas Meriwether and Elizabeth Thornton who were both of English ancestry. (Thornton was the daughter of Francis Thornton and Mary Taliaferro). After his father died of pneumonia, he moved with his mother and stepfather Captain John Marks to Georgia in May 1780. They settled along the Broad River in the Goosepond Community within the Broad River Valley in Wilkes County (now Oglethorpe County).
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Mikhail Lazarev
Admiral Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev (Russian: Михаил Петрович Лазарев, November 3, 1788 – April 11, 1851) was a Russian fleet commander and explorer who discovered Antarctica.
Lazarev was born in Vladimir, a scion of the old Russian nobility from the Vladimir province. In 1800, he enrolled in Russia's Naval College. Three years later he was sent to the British fleet, where he would stay for a continuous five-year navigation. From 1808 to 1813, Lazarev served in the Baltic Fleet. He took part in the Russo-Swedish War of 1808-1809 and Patriotic War of 1812.
Lazarev first circumnavigated the globe in 1813-1816, aboard the vessel Suvorov; the expedition began at Kronstadt and reached Alaska. During this voyage, Lazarev discovered the Suvorov Atoll.
As a commander of the ship Mirny and Fabian von Bellingshausen's deputy on his world cruise in 1819-1821 (Bellingshausen commanded Vostok), Lazarev took part in the discovery of Antarctica and numerous islands. On January 28, 1820 the expedition discovered the Antarctic mainland, approaching the Antarctic coast at the coordinates 69°21′28″S 2°14′50″W / 69.35778°S 2.24722°W / -69.35778; -2.24722 and seeing ice-fields there.
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Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong (born August 5, 1930) is an American former astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, United States Naval Aviator, and the first person to set foot upon the Moon.
Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was in the United States Navy and served in the Korean War. After the war, he served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station, now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center, where he flew over 900 flights in a variety of aircraft. As a research pilot, Armstrong served as project pilot on the F-100 Super Sabre A and C variants, F-101 Voodoo, and the Lockheed F-104A Starfighter. He also flew the Bell X-1B, Bell X-5, North American X-15, F-105 Thunderchief, F-106 Delta Dart, B-47 Stratojet, KC-135 Stratotanker, and was one of eight elite pilots involved in the paraglider research vehicle program (Paresev). He graduated from Purdue University and the University of Southern California.
A participant in the U.S. Air Force's Man In Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs, Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962. His first spaceflight was the NASA Gemini 8 mission in 1966, for which he was the command pilot, becoming one of the first U.S. civilians to fly in space.[citation needed] On this mission, he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft with pilot David Scott. Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission on July 20, 1969. On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent 2½ hours exploring while Michael Collins remained in orbit in the Command Module. Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Richard Nixon along with Collins and Aldrin, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.
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Odoric of Pordenone
Odoric of Pordenone (real name Odorico Mattiussi or Mattiuzzi; c. 1286 – 14 January 1331) was an Italian late-medieval traveler. His account of his visit to China was an important source for the account of John Mandeville; many of the incredible reports in Mandeville have proven to be garbled versions of Odoric's eyewitness descriptions.
Odoric was born at Villanova, a hamlet now belonging to the town of Pordenone in Friuli (Italy), in or about 1286. He came from a Czech family named Mattiussi. According to the ecclesiastical biographers, in early years he took the vows of the Franciscan order and joined their convent at Udine, the capital of Friuli.
Friar Odoric was dispatched to the East, where a remarkable extension of missionary action was then taking place, about 1316-1318, and did not return till the end of 1329 or beginning of 1330; but, as regards intermediate dates, all that we can deduce from his narrative or other evidence is that he was in western India soon after 1321 (pretty certainly in 1322) and that he spent three years in China between the opening of 1323 and the close of 1328. On one of his trips, his ship was nearly capsized by a typhoon but they landed safely in Bolinao, Pangasinan, Philippines. He is said to have held a mass there, in around 1324. That would have predated the mass held in 1521 by Ferdinand Magellan, which is generally regarded as the first mass in the Philippines, by some 197 years. However, historian William Henry Scott concluded after examining Oderic's writings about his travels that he likely never set foot on Philippine soil and, if he did, there is no reason to think that he celebrated mass.
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Otto Sverdrup
Otto Neumann Knoph Sverdrup (31 October 1854, Bindal, Helgeland – 26 November 1930) was a Norwegian sailor and Arctic explorer.
He was born in Bindal as a son of farmer Ulrik Frederik Suhm Sverdrup (1833–1914) and his wife Petra Neumann Knoph (1831–1885). He was a great-grandnephew of Georg Sverdrup and Jacob Liv Borch Sverdrup, first cousin twice removed of Harald Ulrik and Johan Sverdrup, second cousin once removed of Jakob, Georg and Edvard Sverdrup, third cousin of Georg Johan, Jakob, Mimi, Leif and Harald Ulrik Sverdrup. He was a brother-in-law of Johan Vaaler, and Otto himself married his own first cousin, Gretha Andrea Engelschiøn (1866–1937), in October 1891 in Kristiania. Their daughter Audhild Sverdrup (1893–1932) married Carl Johan Sverdrup Marstrander.
His father was born on Buøy in Kolvereid municipality. As oldest son Otto was heir to the Sverdrup properties at Buøy. However, he left it all to his younger brothers and went to Åbygda in Bindal, to the farm named Hårstad, where Otto Sverdrup was born. In 1872, at the age of 17, Otto Sverdrup returned to Nærøy, to Ottersøy where his uncle Søren worked in transportation with his own vessels. Here Sverdrup started his career as a seaman and after a while he was sailing abroad. In 1875 he passed his mate's examination, and some years later the shipmaster's examination.
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Pedro Páez
Pedro Páez Jaramillo (Portuguese: Pêro Pais; 1564 – May 25, 1622) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary in Ethiopia. Páez is considered by many experts on Ethiopia to be the most effective Catholic missionary in Ethiopia. He is believed to be the first European to see and describe the source of the Blue Nile.
Páez was born in Olmeda de las Cebollas (now Olmeda de las Fuentes, near Madrid) only sixteen years before the union of the Spanish and the Portuguese crowns (1580-1640); that union would determine the span of Páez's missionary activity. He studied at Coimbra and, sent from Goa to Ethiopia as a missionary in 1589, he was held captive in Yemen for seven years, from 1590 to 1596, where he used his time to learn Arabic. During this period he had to travel through the Hadramaut and Rub'al Khali deserts, and tasted coffee in Mocha, being most probably the first European to undergo such experiences.
He finally arrived at Massawa in 1603, proceeded to Debarwa where he met the chief of the Portuguese in Ethiopia, John Gabriel on 11 May, and four days later had made his way to Fremona, the Jesuit base in Ethiopia. Unlike his predecessor, Andre de Oviedo, Paul Henze describes him as "gentle, learned, considerate of the feelings of others". When summoned to the court of the young Emperor (negusä nägäst) Za Dengel, his knowledge of Amharic and Ge'ez, as well as his knowledge of Ethiopian customs impressed the sovereign so much that Za Dengel decided to convert from the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church to Catholicism -- although Páez warned him not to announce his declaration too quickly. However, when Za Dengel proclaimed changes in the observance of the Sabbath, Páez retired to Fremona, and waited out the ensuing civil war that ended with the emperor's death.
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Pedro Álvares Cabral
Pedro Álvares Cabral (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpeðɾu ˈaɫvɐɾɨʃ kɐˈβɾaɫ] in European Portuguese or Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpedɾʊ ˈaʊ̯vaɾɪs kaˈbɾaʊ̯] in Brazilian Portuguese; c. 1467 or 1468 – c. 1520) was a Portuguese noble, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the discoverer of Brazil. Cabral conducted the first substantial exploration of the northeast coast of South America and claimed it for Portugal. While details of Cabral's early life are sketchy, it is known that he came from a minor noble family and received a good education. He was appointed to head an expedition to India in 1500, following Vasco da Gama's newly opened route around Africa. The object of the undertaking was to return with valuable spices and to establish trade relations in India—bypassing the monopoly on the spice trade then in the hands of Arab, Turkish and Italian merchants.
His fleet of 13 ships sailed far into the western Atlantic Ocean, perhaps intentionally, where he made landfall on what he initially assumed to be a large island. As the new land was within the Portuguese sphere according to the Treaty of Tordesillas, Cabral claimed it for the Portuguese Crown. He explored the coast, realizing that the large land mass was probably a continent, and dispatched a ship to notify King Manuel I of the new territory. The continent was South America, and the land he had claimed for Portugal later came to be known as Brazil. The fleet reprovisioned and then turned eastward to resume the journey to India.
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Peter Bray
Peter Bray was in 2001, the third person known to cross the Atlantic Ocean alone in a kayak (Franz Romer in 1928 and Hannes Lindemann in 1956 preceded him) but the first one to paddle west to east (i.e.: not riding favorable currents) and also the first one not using sails to help his paddling.[not specific enough to verify][self-published source?] He documented his expedition in the book Kayak Across the Altantic in 2004.
Bray is a Cornishman born in 1957. He was an outdoor pursuits instructor from Pencoed College in Bridgend.
He set out to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a kayak on June 23, 2001, from Newfoundland, Canada. After a 3,000-mile (4,800 km) 76-day journey, he arrived on the West Coast of Ireland on Wednesday, September 5, 2001. The former member of the British Army's Special Air Service Boat Trooper was aiming to raise £100,000 for two children's hospices. Bray's first attempt to cross the Atlantic in a kayak ended in failure in 2000 after he capsized and he spent more than 30 hours adrift in waters of the North Atlantic. Jason Rice designed the special kayak which made the historic crossing.
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Phoenicia
Phoenicia (UK /fɨˈnɪʃə/, US /fəˈniːʃə/; from the Greek: Φοινίκη: Phoiníkē), was an ancient Semitic Canaanite civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. The major Phoenician cities were on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550 BC to 300 BC. The Phoenicians used the galley, a man-powered sailing vessel, and are credited with the invention of the bireme. They were famed in Classical Greece and Rome as 'traders in purple', referring to their monopoly on the precious purple dye of the Murex snail, used, among other things, for royal clothing, and for their spread of the alphabet (or abjad), upon which all major modern phonetic alphabets are derived.
In the Amarna tablets of the 14th century BC, people from the region called themselves Kenaani or Kinaani (Canaanites), although these letters predate the invasion of the Sea Peoples by over a century. Much later, in the 6th century BC, Hecataeus of Miletus writes that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα, a name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix". Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been made to Byblos to bring back "cedars of Lebanon" as early as the third millennium BC.
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Piri Reis
Piri Reis (full name Hacı Ahmed Muhiddin Piri - Hadji Ahmed Muhiddin Piri, Ahmet ibn-i el-Haç Mehmet El Karamani; Reis was a Turkish military rank akin to that of captain) was an Ottoman admiral, geographer and cartographer born between 1465 and 1470 and died in 1554 or 1555.
He is primarily known today for his maps and charts collected in his Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of Navigation), a book that contains detailed information on navigation, as well as very accurate charts (for its time) describing the important ports and cities of the Mediterranean Sea. He gained fame as a cartographer when a small part of his first world map (prepared in 1513) was discovered in 1929 at the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. His world map is the oldest known Turkish atlas showing the New World, and one of the oldest maps of America still in existence anywhere (the oldest known map of America that is still in existence is the map drawn by Juan de la Cosa in 1500). Piri Reis' map is centered on the Sahara at the latitude of the Tropic of Cancer.
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Portuguese people
The Portuguese (Portuguese: os Portugueses) are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion.
Due to the large historical extent of the Portuguese Empire and the colonization of territories in Africa, Asia and the Americas, as well as historical and recent emigration, Portuguese communities can be found in many diverse regions around the globe, and a large Portuguese diaspora exists.
The Portuguese are a southwestern European population, with origins predominantly from Atlantic Europe, Western Europe and the Western Mediterranean.
The earliest modern humans inhabiting Portugal are believed to have been Paleolithic peoples that may have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as 35,000 to 40,000 years ago. Current interpretation of Y-chromosome and mtDNA data suggests that modern-day Portuguese traces largely a significant amount of these lineages to the paleolithic peoples which began arriving to the European continent between the end of the last glaciation around 45,000 years ago.
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Pytheas
Pytheas of Massalia or (using the Latin form) Massilia (Ancient Greek Πυθέας ὁ Μασσαλιώτης) (4th century BC), was a Greek geographer and explorer from the Greek colony, Massalia (modern day Marseilles). He made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe at about 325 BC. He travelled around and visited a considerable part of Great Britain. Pytheas is the first person on record to describe the Midnight Sun,polar ice, Germanic and possibly Finnic tribes. He is the one who introduced the idea of distant Thule to the geographic imagination. His account of the tides is the earliest to state they are caused by the moon.
Pliny says that Timaeus (born about 350 BC) believed Pytheas' story of the discovery of amber. Strabo says that Dicaearchus (died about 285 BC) did not trust the stories of Pytheas. That is all the information that survives concerning the date of Pytheas' voyage. Presuming that Timaeus would not have written until after he was 20 years old at about 330 BC and Dicaearchus would have needed time to write his most mature work, after 300 BC, there is no reason not to accept Tozer's window of 330 BC – 300 BC for the voyage. Some would give Timaeus an extra 5 years, bringing the voyage down to 325 BC at earliest. There is no further evidence.
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Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India.
Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III. Both the Duke of Kent and the King died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne at the age of 18, after her father's three elder brothers had all died without surviving legitimate issue. The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the Sovereign held relatively few direct political powers. Privately, she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments. Publicly, she became a national icon, and was identified with strict standards of personal morality.
She married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children and 26 of their 34 grandchildren who survived childhood married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.
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Ranulph Fiennes
Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 3rd Baronet, OBE (born 7 March 1944), better known as Ranulph (Ran) Fiennes, is a British adventurer and holder of several endurance records. He is also a prolific writer. Fiennes served in the British Army for eight years including a period on counter-insurgency service while attached to the army of the Sultanate of Oman. He later undertook numerous expeditions and was the first person to visit both the North and South Poles by surface means and the first to completely cross Antarctica on foot. In May 2009, at the age of 65, he climbed to the summit of Mount Everest. According to the Guinness Book of World Records he is the world's greatest living explorer. Fiennes has written numerous books about his army service and his expeditions as well as a book defending Robert Falcon Scott from modern revisionists.
Fiennes was born on 7 March 1944 in Windsor, Berkshire shortly after the death of his father, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, commanding the Royal Scots Greys, who died of wounds on 24 November 1943. His mother was Audrey Joan, younger daughter of Sir Percy Newson, Bt. Fiennes inherited his father's baronetcy, becoming the 3rd Baronet of Banbury, at his birth. Fiennes is the third cousin of actors Joseph and Ralph Fiennes and is a distant cousin to the British Royal Family.
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Reinhold Messner
Reinhold Messner (born 17 September 1944) is an Italian mountaineer, adventurer and explorer from the German-speaking autonomous province Alto Adige/Südtirol "whose astonishing feats on Everest and on peaks throughout the world have earned him the status of the greatest climber in history." He is renowned for making the first solo ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen and for being the first climber to ascend all fourteen "eight-thousanders" (peaks over 8,000 metres (26,000 ft) above sea level). He is the author of at least 63 books (in German, 1970–2006), many of which have been translated into other languages.
Born in Brixen (Bressanone), Italy, Messner is a native speaker of German and also fluent in Italian. He grew up in Villnöß and spent his early years climbing in the Alps and fell in love with the Dolomites. His father, Josef Messner, was a teacher. He was also very strict and sometimes severe with Reinhold. Josef led Reinhold to his first summit at the age of five. Reinhold had eight brothers and one sister: he later climbed with his brother Günther and made Arctic crossings with his brother Hubert.
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Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈɾuːɑl ˈɑmʉnsən]; 16 July 1872 – c. 18 June 1928) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the Antarctic expedition (1910-12) to discover the South Pole in December 1911 and he was the first expedition leader to (undisputedly) reach the North Pole in 1926. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage (1903-06). He disappeared in June 1928 while taking part in a rescue mission. Amundsen, along with Douglas Mawson, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton, was a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Amundsen was born to a family of Norwegian shipowners and captains in Borge, between the towns Fredrikstad and Sarpsborg. His father was Jens Amundsen. He was the fourth son in the family. His mother chose to keep him out of the maritime industry of the family and pressured him to become a doctor, a promise that Amundsen kept until his mother died when he was aged 21, whereupon he quit university for a life at sea. Amundsen had hidden a lifelong desire inspired by Fridtjof Nansen's crossing of Greenland in 1888 and the doomed Franklin expedition. As a result, he decided on a life of intense exploration.[citation needed]
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Robert Ballard
Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942) is a former United States Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks. He is most known for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998. He discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who saved its crew. Ballard leads ocean exploration on E/V Nautilus.
Ballard grew up in Pacific Beach, San Diego, California to a mother of German heritage and a father of British heritage. He has attributed his early interest in underwater exploration to reading the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, living by the ocean in San Diego, and his fascination with the groundbreaking expeditions of the bathyscaphe Trieste.
Ballard began working for Andreas Rechnitzer's Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation in 1962 when his father, Chet Ballard, the chief engineer at North American Aviation's Minuteman missile program, helped him get a part-time job. At North American, he worked on North American's failed proposal to build the submersible Alvin for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
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Robyn Davidson
Robyn Davidson (born 6 September 1950) is an Australian writer best known for her book Tracks, about a 1,700-mile trek across the deserts of west Australia using camels. Her career of travelling and writing about her travels has spanned over 30 years.
Davidson was born at Stanley Park, a cattle station in Miles, Queensland, the second of two girls. Her mother committed suicide when Davidson was 11, and she was largely raised by her father's unmarried sister, Gillian. She went to a girls' boarding school in Brisbane. She received a music scholarship but did not take it up. In Brisbane, Davidson shared a house with radical biologists and studied zoology. Later, she went to Sydney and lived a bohemian kind of life as a member of the Push.
In the 1970s, Davidson moved to Alice Springs in an effort to work with camels for a desert trek she was planning. For two years she trained camels and learned how to survive in the harsh desert. She was peripherally involved in the Aboriginal Land Rights movement.
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Rory Stewart
Roderick 'Rory' James Nugent Stewart OBE FRSL MP (born 3 January 1973) is a British academic, author, and Conservative politician. Since May 2010, he has been the Member of Parliament for Penrith and the Border, in the county of Cumbria, North West England.
Stewart was a senior coalition official in a province of occupied Iraq in 2003-2004. He is known for his book about this experience, The Prince of the Marshes (also published under the title Occupational Hazards) and for his 2002 walk, lasting 32 days, across Afghanistan, which served as the basis for another book, The Places in Between, as well as his later cultural development work in Afghanistan as the Executive Chairman of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, a British charity.
He also served for nine months on his gap year in the Black Watch regiment of the British Army and in the British Foreign Service, where he worked as a diplomat in Indonesia and the Balkans.
Stewart, whose family hails from Crieff in Perthshire, Scotland, was born in Hong Kong, raised in Malaysia and Scotland and educated at the Dragon School, Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied modern history and politics, philosophy and economics (PPE). He graduated with a First and while a student at Oxford, he was a summer tutor to Prince William and Prince Harry. He holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of Stirling, as well as from The American University of Paris. As a teenager, he was a member of the Labour Party.
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Sacagawea
Sacagawea (also Sakakawea, Sacajawea; English pronunciation: /ˌsækədʒəˈwiːə/ see below); (c. 1788 – December 20, 1812; see below for other theories about her death) was a Lemhi Shoshone woman, who accompanied the Lewis and Clark Expedition, acting as an interpreter and guide, in their exploration of the Western United States. She traveled thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean between 1804 and 1806.
She has become an important part of the Lewis and Clark legend in the American public imagination. The National American Woman Suffrage Association of the early twentieth century adopted her as a symbol of women's worth and independence, erecting several statues and plaques in her memory, and doing much to spread the story of her accomplishments.
In 2000, the United States Mint issued the Sacagawea dollar coin in her honor, depicting Sacagawea and her son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. The face on the coin was modeled on a modern Shoshone-Bannock woman named Randy'L He-dow Teton. No contemporary image of Sacagawea exists.
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Salvador Fidalgo
Salvador Fidalgo y Lopegarcía (6 August 1756 – 27 September 1803) was a Spanish explorer who commanded an exploring expedition for Spain to Alaska and the Pacific Northwest during the late 18th century.
Fidalgo was born at he was one of the best in Seo de Urgel in the province of Lérida, Spain, the heir of a noble Navarrese family. He entered joined the Spanish Navy as a guardiamarina (midshipman) at the Real Colegio de Guardiamarinas in Cádiz. He graduated in 1775 and given the rank of Alférez de Fragata (Frigate Ensign).
He was chosen to be a member of Vicente Tofiño's team of cartographers working during the 1780s on the first atlas of Spain's ports and coastal waters. He served on various assignments in the Mediterranean and saw action against the British and Portuguese. In 1778 he was promoted to Teniente de Navío (Lieutenant) and assigned to the Spanish naval station at San Blas, Mexico.
The Spanish claim to Alaska and the Pacific Northwest had dated back to a 1493 papal bull (Inter caetera) and rights contained in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas; these two formal acts gave Spain the exclusive rights to colonize all of the Western Hemisphere (excluding Brazil), including the exclusive rights to colonize all of the west coast of North America. The first European expedition to actually reach the west coast of North America was led by the Spaniard Vasco Núñez de Balboa, which achieved the Pacific coast of Panama in 1513. Balboa claimed the Pacific Ocean for the Spanish Crown, as well as the lands touching it, including all of the west coast of North America. This action of Balboa further solidified the Spanish claim of exclusive control over the entire west coast of North America.
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Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain (French pronunciation: [samɥɛl də ʃɑ̃plɛ̃] born Samuel Champlain; August 13 1574 – December 25, 1635), "The Father of New France", was a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He founded New France and Quebec City on July 3, 1608. He is important to Canadian history because he made the first accurate map of the coast and he helped establish the settlements.
Born into a family of master mariners, Champlain, while still a young man, began exploring North America in 1603 under the guidance of François Gravé Du Pont. From 1604 to 1607 Champlain participated in the exploration and settlement of the first permanent European settlement north of Florida, Port Royal, Acadia (1605). Then, in 1608, he established the French settlement that is now Quebec City. Champlain was the first European to explore and describe the Great Lakes, and published maps of his journeys and accounts of what he learned from the natives and the French living among the Natives. He formed relationships with local Montagnais and Innu and later with others farther west (Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing, or Georgian Bay), with Algonquin and with Huron Wendat, and agreed to provide assistance in their wars against the Iroquois.
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Semyon Dezhnyov
Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnyov (Russian: Семён Ива́нович Дежнёв; IPA: [sʲɪˈmʲɵn ɪˈvanəvʲɪt͡ɕ dʲɪˈʐnʲɵf]; commonly spelled Dezhnev in English-language sources; c. 1605 – 1673) was a Russian explorer of Siberia and the first European to sail through the Bering Strait, 80 years before Bering did. In 1648 he sailed from the Kolyma River on the Arctic Ocean to the Anadyr River on the Pacific. His exploit was forgotten for almost a hundred years and Vitus Bering is usually given credit for discovering the strait that bears his name.
He was Pomor, born about 1605, possibly at Veliky Ustyug or the village of Pinega. According to Lydia Black (2004: 17), Dezhnyov was recruited for Siberian service, possibly as a service-man or government agent, in 1630. He served for eight years in Tobolsk and Yeniseisk, and then went to Yakutia in 1639, or possibly earlier. He ”is said to have been a member of the Cossack detachment under Beketov, who is credited with founding Yakutsk (on the Lena River) in 1632. In any case, no later than 1639 he was sent to Yakutia, where he married a Yakut captive and spent the next three years collecting tribute from the natives.
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Spanish people
The term Spanish people (or Spaniards) has two distinct meanings: Traditionally, it applies to people native to any part of Spain. More recently, it has also come to have a legal meaning, referring to people who hold Spanish citizenship.
Within Spain there are a number of nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history. The official language of Spain is Spanish (also known as Castilian), a standard language based on the mediaeval dialect of the Castilians of north-central Spain. There are several commonly spoken regional languages. With the exception of Basque, the languages native to Spain are Romance languages.
There are substantial populations outside Spain with ancestors who emigrated from Spain; most notably in Latin America.
The earliest modern humans inhabiting Spain are believed to have been Neolithic peoples who may have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as 35,000–40,000 years ago. In more recent times the Iberians are believed to have arrived or developed in the region between the 4th millennium BC and the 3rd millennium BC, initially settling along the Mediterranean coast. Celts settled in Spain during the Iron Age. Some of those tribes in North-central Spain, which had cultural contact with the Iberians, are called Celtiberians. In addition, a group known as the Tartessians and later Turdetanians inhabited southwestern Spain and who are believed to have developed a separate civilization of Phoenician influence. The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians successively founded trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast over a period of several centuries. The Second Punic War between the Carthaginians and Romans was fought mainly in what is now Spain and Portugal.
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Tenzing Norgay
Tenzing Norgay, GM (late May 1915 – 9 May 1986) born Namgyal Wangdi and often referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali Sherpa mountaineer. Among the most famous mountain climbers in history, he was one of the first two individuals known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest, which he accomplished with Edmund Hillary on 29 May 1953. He was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
There are conflicting accounts of his early life. The account that he gave in his autobiography, accepted for several years, is that he was a Sherpa born and brought up in Tengboche, Khumbu in northeastern Nepal.
Khumbu lies near Mount Everest, which the Tibetans and Sherpas call Chomolungma which in Tibetan means Holy Mother. He was a Buddhist, the traditional religion of the Sherpas and Tibetans.
His exact date of birth is not known, but he knew it was in late May by the weather and the crops. After his ascent of Everest on 29 May, he decided to celebrate his birthday on that day thereafter. His year of birth according to the Tibetan Calendar was the Year of the Rabbit, making it likely that he was born in 1915.
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Thomas Coulter
Thomas Coulter (1793–1843), of Dundalk, was an Irish physician, botanist, and explorer. He was a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, where he founded the college's herbarium.
He served as physician with the Real del Monte Company in Mexico, during which period he collected plants in the region. He is best remembered for exploration and botanical research in Mexico, Arizona and Alta California in the early 19th century. He subsequently returned to Ireland in 1834 and became curator of the herbarium at Trinity College, Dublin.
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Uncontacted peoples
Uncontacted peoples, also referred to as isolated peoples or lost tribes, are communities who live, or have lived, either by choice (peoples living in voluntary isolation) or by circumstance, without significant contact with globalised civilization.
Few people have remained totally uncontacted by global civilization. Indigenous rights activists call for such groups to be left alone, stating that it will interfere with their right to self-determination.
Most uncontacted communities are located in densely forested areas in South America and New Guinea. Knowledge of the existence of these groups comes mostly from infrequent and sometimes violent encounters with neighbouring tribes, and from aerial footage. Isolated tribes may lack immunity to common diseases, which can kill 50 to 80 per cent of their people after contact.
Uncontacted tribes are a source of fascination in developed society, and the idea of tour operators offering extreme adventure tours to specifically search out uncontacted peoples has become controversial. A BBC Four documentary in 2006 documented a controversial American tour operator who specializes in escorted tours to "discover" uncontacted peoples in West Papua, similar to the BBC's own adventure in Papua New Guinea to make their 1971 documentary A Blank on the Map in which the first contact in over a decade was made with the Biami people.[citation needed]
wn.com/Uncontacted_peoples -
Valentina Tereshkova
Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (Russian: Валенти́на Влади́мировна Терешко́ва; born March 6, 1937) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut, and was the first woman in space. She was selected out of more than four hundred applicants, and then out of five finalists, to pilot Vostok 6 on the 16 June, 1963, becoming both the first woman and the first civilian to fly in space, as she was only honorarily inducted into the USSR's Air Force as a condition on joining the Cosmonaut Corps. During her three-day mission, she performed various tests on herself to collect data on the female body's reaction to spaceflight.
Before being recruited as a cosmonaut, Tereshkova was a textile factory assembly worker and an amateur parachutist. After the dissolution of the first group of female cosmonauts in 1969, she became a prominent member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, holding various political offices. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, she stayed in politics and remains revered as a hero in post-Soviet Russia.
wn.com/Valentina_Tereshkova -
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈvaʃku ðɐ ˈɣɐmɐ]) (c. 1460 or 1469 – 24 December 1524) was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India. For a short time in 1524 he was the Governor of Portuguese India, under the title of Viceroy.
Vasco da Gama was born in either 1460 or 1469 in Sines, on the southwest coast of Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas. Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, consisted of little more than a cluster of whitewashed, red-tiled cottages, tenanted chiefly by fisherfolk.
Vasco da Gama's father was Estêvão da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu and went on to rise in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago. Estêvão da Gama was appointed alcaide-mór (civil governor) of Sines in the 1460s, a post he held until 1478, and continued as a receiver of taxes and holder of the Order's commendas in the region.
wn.com/Vasco_da_Gama -
Vitus Bering
Vitus Jonassen Bering (baptised 5 August 1681 in Horsens, Denmark – 8 December 1741 on Bering Island, Russia) was a Danish-born navigator in the service of the Russian Navy as (eventually Captain-Komandor) Витус Ионассен Беринг, known among the Russian sailors as Ivan Ivanovich Bering. He is known for his two explorations of the north-eastern coast of the Asian continent and from there the western coast on the North American continent. The Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island, Bering Glacier and the Bering Land Bridge have since all been (posthumously) named in honour of the explorer.
wn.com/Vitus_Bering -
Wally Herbert
Sir Walter William "Wally" Herbert (24 October 1934 – 12 June 2007) was a British polar explorer, writer and artist. In 1969 he became the first man to walk undisputed to the North Pole, on the 60th anniversary of Robert Peary's famous, but disputed, expedition. He was described by Sir Ranulph Fiennes as "the greatest polar explorer of our time".
During the course of his polar career, which spanned more than 50 years, he spent 15 years in the wilderness regions of the polar world, and travelled with dog teams and open boats well over 23,000 miles - more than half of that distance through unexplored areas.
Walter Herbert was born into an army family in England but emigrated to Egypt at the age of three, then to South Africa for nine years. He studied at the Royal School of Military Survey then spent 18 months surveying in Egypt and Cyprus. He traveled back to England through Turkey and Greece, drawing portraits for his board and lodging.
In 1955 he carried out surveying in the Antarctic with the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, during which he became an expert in dog sleighing. On a journey along the Antarctic Peninsula from Hope Bay to Portal Point he sledged some 5,000 km. This experience with dogs led him to a job with the New Zealand Antarctic programme which commissioned him to purchase dogs in Greenland for the Antarctic. There he learnt Inuit methods of dog driving.
wn.com/Wally_Herbert -
Wang Dayuan
Wang Dayuan (simplified Chinese: 汪大渊, fl. 1311–1350) was a traveller from Quanzhou, China during the Yuan Dynasty in the 14th century. He made two major trips on ships. During 1328–1333, he sailed along the South China Sea and visited many places in Southeast Asia and reached as far as South Asia, landing in Sri Lanka and India. In 1334–1339 he visited north Africa and East Africa.
Around 1330, Wang visited the island of Singapore, where he wrote about a small settlement called Dan Ma Xi (淡马锡, from Malay Tamasik) with Malay and Chinese residents. His account of his travel, Daoyi Zhilue Guangzheng Xia (Dao Yi Zhi Lue) dated in 1349, is one of the few records documenting the early history of Singapore.
wn.com/Wang_Dayuan -
Wilfred Thesiger
Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger, CBE, DSO, FRAS, FRGS (3 June 1910 – 24 August 2003) was a British explorer and travel writer born in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.
Thesiger's father, the Hon. Wilfred Gilbert Thesiger, younger son of the second baron, was a diplomat. The actor Ernest Thesiger (1879–1961) was his cousin. Frederic Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford, Viceroy of India, was his uncle.
Thesiger was educated at Eton College, a famous independent school in Eton in Berkshire, followed by Magdalen College at the University of Oxford, where he took a Third in History. Between 1930 and 1933, Thesiger represented Oxford at boxing and later (in 1933) became captain of the Oxford boxing team.
In 1930, Thesiger returned to Africa, having received a personal invitation by Emperor Haile Selassie to attend his coronation. He returned again in 1933 in an expedition, funded in part by the Royal Geographical Society, to explore the course of the Awash River. During this expedition, he became the first European to enter the Aussa Sultanate and visit Lake Abbe.
wn.com/Wilfred_Thesiger -
Willem Barentsz
Willem Barentsz (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈʋɪləm ˈbaːrənts], anglicized as William Barents or Barentz) (c. 1550 – 20 June 1597) was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, explorer, and a leader of early expeditions to the far north.
The Barents Sea,Barentsburg and Barents Region were all named after him.
Willem Barentsz was born around the year 1550 on the island Terschelling in the Seventeen Provinces.
A cartographer by trade, Barentsz sailed to Spain and the Mediterranean to complete an atlas of the Mediterranean region, which he co-published with Petrus Plancius.
His career as an explorer was spent searching for the Northeast passage, which he reasoned must exist as clear, open water north of Siberia since the sun shone 24 hours a day, which he believed would have melted any potential ice.
On 5 June 1594 Barentsz left the island of Texel aboard the small ship Mercury, as part of a group of three ships sent out in separate directions to try and enter the Kara Sea, with the hopes of finding the Northeast passage above Siberia. Between 23 and 29 June, Barentsz stayed at Kildin Island.
wn.com/Willem_Barentsz -
Xu Fu
Xú Fú (Chinese: 徐福 or 徐巿 (not to be confused with the character 市); was born in 255 BC in Qi, and served as a court sorcerer in Qin Dynasty China. He was sent by Qin Shi Huang to the eastern seas twice to look for the elixir of life. His two journeys occurred between 219 BC and 210 BC. It was believed that the fleet included 60 barques and around 5,000 crew members, 3,000 boys and girls, and craftsmen of different fields. After he embarked on a second mission in 210 BC, he never returned. Various records suggest that he may have arrived and died in Japan.
The ruler of Qin, Qin Shi Huang feared death and sought a way to live forever. He entrusted Xu Fu with the task of finding the secret of immortality. In 219 BC, Xu Fu was sent with three thousand virgin boys and girls to retrieve the elixir of life from the immortals on the Penglai Mountain, including Anqi Sheng, who was purportedly a magician who was already a thousand years old. Xu sailed for several years without finding the mountain. In 210 BC, when Qin Shi Huang questioned him, Xu Fu claimed there was a giant sea creature blocking the path, and asked for archers to kill the creature. Qin Shi Huang agreed, and sent archers to kill a giant fish. Xu then set sail again, but he never returned from this trip. The Records of the Grand Historian says he came to a place with "flat plains and wide swamps" (平原廣澤) and proclaimed himself king, never to return.
wn.com/Xu_Fu -
Yermak Timofeyevich
Ermac Timofeyevich (Russian: Ерма́к Тимофе́евич; IPA: [jɪrˈmak tʲɪmɐˈfʲejɪvʲɪt͡ɕ]; born between 1532 and 1542 – August 5 or 6, 1584) was a Cossack who led the Russian conquest of Siberia in the reign of Ivan the Terrible.
Russia’s fur interests fueled their desire to expand east into Siberia. The tsar’s ultimate goal was to extend all the way to the Bering Strait. The Tatar khanate of Kazan was established as the best entryway into Siberia. In 1552, Ivan the Terrible’s modernized army toppled the khanate. After the takeover of Kazan, the tsar looked to the powerful and affluent Stroganov merchant family to spearhead the eastward expansion. In the late 1570s, the Stroganovs recruited Cossack fighters to invade Asia on behalf of the tsar. They elected Ermac as the leader of their armed forces and, in 1582, Ermac set out with an army of 840 to “conquer” Siberia.
On October 26, 1582, Ermac and his soldiers overthrew Kuchum Khan's Tatar empire at Qashliq in a battle that marked the "conquest of Siberia." Ermac remained in Siberia and continued his struggle against the Tatars until 1584, when he and his party were ambushed and killed in a raid organized by Kuchum Khan.
wn.com/Yermak_Timofeyevich -
Yerofey Khabarov
Yerofey Pavlovich Khabarov or Svyatitsky (Russian: Ерофей Павлович Хабаров (Святицкий) Erofej Pavlovič Chabarov (Svjatickij; the first name is often spelled Ярофей (Yarofei) in contemporary accounts; 1603 – after 1671), was a Russian entrepreneur and adventurer, best known for his exploring the Amur river region and his attempts to colonize the area for Russia. For background see Russian-Manchu border conflicts.
The major Russian city of Khabarovsk, as well as the small town and railway station Yerofey Pavlovich (Ерофей Павлович) (located on the Trans-Siberian railroad in Amur Oblast) bear his name.
A native of the Veliky Ustyug area in the northern European Russia, Khabarov was a manager for the Stroganovs at the saltworks in Solvychegodsk. In 1625, Khabarov sailed from Tobolsk to Mangazeya. Three years later, he left the town with his expedition and reached the Kheta river (eastern part of Taimyr). In 1630, Khabarov took part in a voyage from Mangazeya to Tobolsk. In 1632—1641, he reached the Lena River and founded a farming settlement with saltworks along the Lena at the mouths of the Kuta and Kirenga Rivers.
wn.com/Yerofey_Khabarov -
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (Russian: Ю́рий Алексе́евич Гага́рин,Russian pronunciation: [ˈjurʲɪj ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ ɡɐˈɡarʲɪn]; 9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961.
Gagarin became an international celebrity, and was awarded many medals and honours, including Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation's highest honour. Vostok 1 marked his only spaceflight, but he served as backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission (which ended in a fatal crash). Gagarin later became deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre outside Moscow, which was later named after him. Gagarin died in 1968 when a MiG 15 training jet he was piloting crashed.
Yuri Gagarin was born in the village of Klushino near Gzhatsk (now in Smolensk Oblast, Russia), on 9 March 1934. The adjacent town of Gzhatsk was renamed Gagarin in 1968 in his honour. His parents, Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina, worked on a collective farm. While manual labourers are described in official reports as "peasants", his mother was reportedly a voracious reader, and his father a skilled carpenter. Yuri was the third of four children, and his elder sister helped raise him while his parents worked. Like millions of people in the Soviet Union, the Gagarin family suffered during Nazi occupation in World War II. After a German officer took over their house, the family constructed a small mud hut where they spent a year and nine months until the end of the occupation. His two older siblings were deported to Nazi Germany for slave labour in 1943, and did not return until after the war. In 1946, the family moved to Gzhatsk.
wn.com/Yuri_Gagarin -
Yñigo Ortiz de Retez
Yñigo Ortiz de Retez (fl. 1545) was a 16th-century Spanish maritime explorer, who navigated the northern coastline of the Pacific - Melanesian island of New Guinea, and is credited with bestowing the island's name ("Nueva Guinea").
On June 13, 1545 Ortiz de Retez, in command of the San Juan, left port in Tidore, an island of the East Indies and sailed to reach the northern coast of the island of New Guinea, which he ventured along as far as the mouth of the Mamberamo River.
He took possession of the land for the Spanish Crown, in the process giving the island the name by which it is known today. He called it Nueva Guinea owing to the resemblance of the local inhabitants to the peoples of the Guinea coast in West Africa. Colegio London de EGB y Preescolar
wn.com/Yñigo_Ortiz_de_Retez -
Zhang Qian
Zhang Qian (traditional Chinese 張騫; simplified Chinese 张骞; Wade-Giles Chang Ch'ien, pronounced "Jang Chyen") was an imperial envoy to the world outside of China in the 2nd century BCE, during the time of the Han Dynasty. He was the first official diplomat to bring back reliable information about Central Asia to the Chinese imperial court, then under Emperor Wu of Han, and played an important pioneering role in the Chinese colonization and conquest of the region now known as Xinjiang.
Today Zhang Qian's travels are associated with the major route of transcontinental trade, the Silk Road. In essence, his missions opened up to China the many kingdoms and products of a part of the world then unknown to the Chinese. Zhang Qian's accounts of his explorations of Central Asia are detailed in the Early Han historical chronicles, Records of the Grand Historian or Shiji, compiled by Sima Qian in the 1st century BCE . Today Zhang Qian is considered a national hero and revered for the key role he played in opening China to the world of commercial trade.
wn.com/Zhang_Qian -
Zheng He
Zheng He (1371–1433; simplified Chinese: 郑和; traditional Chinese: 鄭和; pinyin: Zhèng Hé), also known as Ma Sanbao (simplified Chinese: 马三宝; traditional Chinese: 馬三寶) and Hajji Mahmud Shamsuddin (Arabic: حاجي محمود شمس الدين) was a Hui-Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who commanded voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, East Africa, and the Horn of Africa collectively referred to as the Voyages of Zheng He or Voyages of Cheng Ho from 1405 to 1433.
Zheng, born as Ma He (馬和 / 马和), was the second son of a Muslim family which also had four daughters, from Kunyang, present day Jinning, just south of Kunming near the southwest corner of Lake Dian in Yunnan.
He was the great great great grandson of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a Persian who served in the administration of the Mongolian Empire and was appointed governor of Yunnan during the early Yuan Dynasty. Both his grandfather and great-grandfather carried the title of Hajji, which indicates they had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. His great-grandfather was named Bayan and may have been a member of a Mongol garrison in Yunnan.
wn.com/Zheng_He
- Explorer - The Incredible String Band
- Explorer - Incredible String Band
- Explorer - Audioslave
- Explorer - A Current Affair
I can no longer hear you call 'cross the airwaves
Fog on the line has shaken my will not to yield
The one left here, my command all gone down
I'm caught, caught, where the cold dark fingers trace
Where the men who failed, they lie and kiss the dark earth's face
I am lost, lost, by the storm clouds am tossed
Now here comes the snow deep
And I will take a sleep, sweet Margaret my dear
Tell me
It was long and a strong and sweet year indeed
To get lost in
I've seen the survivors when they come home from the icefields
The lace and the ladies' flush and a pearl on the eye
Fine bone china and the log fire spark high
But I'm back in the wasteland low, where the ripe seed never gets blown
What chance I'll see te sun on the lea, hear the cornfield moan
I am lost, lost, by the storm clouds am tossed
Now here comes the snow deep
And I will take sleep, sweet Margaret my dear
Tell me
It was a long and a strong and a sweet year indeed
To get lost in
No one to hear me when I cry
No one to hold me when I sigh
No one to watch me when I die
How will I live again
I can no longer hear you call 'cross the airwaves
Fog on the line has shaken my will not to yield
The one left here, my command all gone down
I'm caught, caught, where the cold dark fingers trace
Where the men who failed, they lie and kiss the dark earth's face
I am lost, lost, by the storm clouds am tossed
Now here comes the snow deep
And I will take a sleep, sweet Margaret my dear
Tell me
It was long and a strong and sweet year indeed
To get lost in
I've seen the survivors when they come home from the icefields
The lace and the ladies' flush and a pearl on the eye
Fine bone china and the log fire spark high
But I'm back in the wasteland low, where the ripe seed never gets blown
What chance I'll see te sun on the lea, hear the cornfield moan
I am lost, lost, by the storm clouds am tossed
Now here comes the snow deep
And I will take sleep, sweet Margaret my dear
Tell me
It was a long and a strong and a sweet year indeed
To get lost in
No one to hear me when I cry
No one to hold me when I sigh
No one to watch me when I die
I met a man locked away
For things he hadn't done
Innocence on a ball and chain
He'll never feel the sun
Again on his face or roses
In his hands but when he smiled
At me I could understand
If you're free you'll never see the walls
If your head is clear you'll never free fall
If you're right you'll never fear wrong
If your head is high you'll never fear at all
There was a daughter of a man
Who took his life too young
She swore she'd never do the same
Then did just what he'd done
And a boy who's gone insane
Voices in his head
No one knows what they say
Now his mother's dead
If you're free you'll never see the walls
If your head is clear you'll never free fall
If you're right you'll never fear wrong
If your head is high you'll never fear at all
There was a man who had a face
That looked alot like me
I saw him in the mirror and
I fought him in the street
And when he turned away
I shot him in the head
Then came to realize
I had killed myself
If you're free you'll never see the walls
If your head is clear you'll never free fall
If you're right you'll never fear wrong
Every road has come to an end
And it seems as though that I've reached every one of them
And I have no words to describe how bad want to be myself
But in this mirror I see somebody else
[Chorus]
Explorer, can you hear me?
Oh God I can hear you
I am lost again, you've seen everything in me
When I look up at this night sky
The moon and stars You set in place
Yet God you make us
Just a little lower and crown us king and queens
Is this what we're meant to be?
[Chorus]
Explorer, can you hear me?
Oh God I can hear you
I am lost again, you've seen everything in me
Explorer, can you hear me?
Oh God I can hear you
I am lost again, Your eyes show me what You see
We all fall down to pieces
It's everything we know, we know
We all fall to pieces
It's everything we know
We all fall to pieces
It's everything, it's everything we know
[Chorus]
Explorer, can you hear me?
Oh God I can hear you
I am lost again, you've seen everything in me
Explorer, can you hear me?
Oh God I can hear you
RELEASE
ALBUMS
- Enjaw J
- Transit to Nowhere
- No. 8
- Megawar
- Queen of Scots
- Blue Fusion
- Dynamite
- Rabbits
- No. 14
- Yellow Power
Send this Playlist by SMS
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Rolando The Explorer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:40
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
Ever wondered what "Dora The Explorer" would be like in real life? Join Rolando and Bigote & find out! Come on vamanos! Tweet this: bit.ly Facebook this: on.fb.me Beats were made using FL Studio.
http://wn.com/Rolando_The_Explorer
Ever wondered what "Dora The Explorer" would be like in real life? Join Rolando and Bigote & find out! Come on vamanos! Tweet this: bit.ly Facebook this: on.fb.me Beats were made using FL Studio.
Child of the 90s | Internet Explorer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:41
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
You grew up. So did we. Reconnect with the new Internet Explorer. Visit www.browseryoulovedtohate.com for more. #childofthe90s
http://wn.com/Child_of_the_90s_|_Internet_Explorer
You grew up. So did we. Reconnect with the new Internet Explorer. Visit www.browseryoulovedtohate.com for more. #childofthe90s
- published: 23 Jan 2013
- views: 13875446
- author: internetexplorer
Bogart the Explorer: MOTELS AND YOU
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:57
- Updated: 28 Feb 2013
BOGART LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN HIM BEFORE... in an educational video on Philippine Motels! Amazing! Bogart the Explorer checks into a Philippine motel and looks at the different local myths that surround these establishments. Enjoy! Don't forget to share, like and comment.. and of course, subscribe! Follow us on twitter @BogartDExplorer, like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com and subscribe to www.youtube.com Note: This video may not be suitable for younger viewers, parental guidance is advised. Also Note: That this is a Parody video! Thanks to everyone who made this video possible! Special thanks to everyone at VC for accommodating us during the making of this video and Pocholo Gonzales (Creativoices) for our voice over needs. And thanks to all the fans that have supported us since the very beginning. We hope to create more videos in the coming months for you. Don't forget to watch, re-watch and share all the other Bogart the Explorer vids! Cheers, mates! Background Music: Various Coronet videos - ALL Public Domain and a theme composed by Jeje Santos (Giniling Festival)
http://wn.com/Bogart_the_Explorer_MOTELS_AND_YOU
BOGART LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN HIM BEFORE... in an educational video on Philippine Motels! Amazing! Bogart the Explorer checks into a Philippine motel and looks at the different local myths that surround these establishments. Enjoy! Don't forget to share, like and comment.. and of course, subscribe! Follow us on twitter @BogartDExplorer, like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com and subscribe to www.youtube.com Note: This video may not be suitable for younger viewers, parental guidance is advised. Also Note: That this is a Parody video! Thanks to everyone who made this video possible! Special thanks to everyone at VC for accommodating us during the making of this video and Pocholo Gonzales (Creativoices) for our voice over needs. And thanks to all the fans that have supported us since the very beginning. We hope to create more videos in the coming months for you. Don't forget to watch, re-watch and share all the other Bogart the Explorer vids! Cheers, mates! Background Music: Various Coronet videos - ALL Public Domain and a theme composed by Jeje Santos (Giniling Festival)
- published: 07 Feb 2013
- views: 25302
- author: FrontActHecklines
Dora the Explorer English Full Episode - Leon, The Circus Lion
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 21:20
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
MOVIES HERE FULL DORA THE EXPLORER doralaexploradorasalvaelbosque.blogspot.com doralaexploradoramiprimerabici.blogspot.com Complete Children's Movies http
http://wn.com/Dora_the_Explorer_English_Full_Episode_Leon,_The_Circus_Lion
MOVIES HERE FULL DORA THE EXPLORER doralaexploradorasalvaelbosque.blogspot.com doralaexploradoramiprimerabici.blogspot.com Complete Children's Movies http
- published: 19 Nov 2012
- views: 5003213
- author: TheDoraTheExplorerHD
Bogart The Explorer - The Philippine Jumper
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:26
- Updated: 22 Feb 2013
* based on June 2012 rates. For more information on your bill breakdown click on the links below: www.meralco.com.ph www.doe.gov.ph www.erc.gov.ph www.ngcp.ph *Soundtrack "Barbero" by Bogart the Explorer's band GINILING FESTIVAL
http://wn.com/Bogart_The_Explorer_The_Philippine_Jumper
* based on June 2012 rates. For more information on your bill breakdown click on the links below: www.meralco.com.ph www.doe.gov.ph www.erc.gov.ph www.ngcp.ph *Soundtrack "Barbero" by Bogart the Explorer's band GINILING FESTIVAL
- published: 08 Jul 2012
- views: 83914
- author: FrontActHecklines
Google unveils Google Glass Explorer Edition at I/O - CNET News
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:26
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
cnet.co Google's Sergey Brin reveals video-capturing, augmented reality glasses at Google I/O in San Francisco. The Google Glass Explorer Edition will be available via pre-order for conference attendees, cost $1500, and ship in early 2013.
http://wn.com/Google_unveils_Google_Glass_Explorer_Edition_at_I_O_CNET_News
cnet.co Google's Sergey Brin reveals video-capturing, augmented reality glasses at Google I/O in San Francisco. The Google Glass Explorer Edition will be available via pre-order for conference attendees, cost $1500, and ship in early 2013.
- published: 27 Jun 2012
- views: 652947
- author: CNETTV
Choose Your Path: The Explorer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:41
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
Mike Donatelli, Content Director at Carbine Studios, wanders the world of Nexus as an Explorer. Climb higher, dig deeper and go farther than anyone in order to claim territory in the name of your faction. Keep up with the latest news -- www.wildstar-online.com Follow us on Twitter -- http Like us on Facebook -- www.facebook.com We're hiring! -- www.carbinestudios.com
http://wn.com/Choose_Your_Path_The_Explorer
Mike Donatelli, Content Director at Carbine Studios, wanders the world of Nexus as an Explorer. Climb higher, dig deeper and go farther than anyone in order to claim territory in the name of your faction. Keep up with the latest news -- www.wildstar-online.com Follow us on Twitter -- http Like us on Facebook -- www.facebook.com We're hiring! -- www.carbinestudios.com
- published: 06 Feb 2013
- views: 19312
- author: WildStarOnline
Do you know this guy? | Internet Explorer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:54
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
Check out www.browseryoulovedtohate.com for more. Directed by Ryan Cory. Browser Wars Image by Galit Weisberg (http
http://wn.com/Do_you_know_this_guy?_|_Internet_Explorer
Check out www.browseryoulovedtohate.com for more. Directed by Ryan Cory. Browser Wars Image by Galit Weisberg (http
- published: 29 Nov 2012
- views: 2440735
- author: internetexplorer
Winter
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 110:47
- Updated: 28 Feb 2013
Winter movie is a horror thriller. Dr Ramdas (Jayaram) who is leading medical practitioner in Hyderabad and his wife (Bhavana). They have two kids. Fed up with the fast paced city life, Ramdas and his wife decide to move to a quiet bungalow on outskirts of the city. Kids were excited and thrilled to move to a bigger house with lot of space. Both Ramdas and his wife enjoyed the move too. Well their happiness did not last long. What they encountered there and how that affected their lives in portrayed in the movie.
http://wn.com/Winter
Winter movie is a horror thriller. Dr Ramdas (Jayaram) who is leading medical practitioner in Hyderabad and his wife (Bhavana). They have two kids. Fed up with the fast paced city life, Ramdas and his wife decide to move to a quiet bungalow on outskirts of the city. Kids were excited and thrilled to move to a bigger house with lot of space. Both Ramdas and his wife enjoyed the move too. Well their happiness did not last long. What they encountered there and how that affected their lives in portrayed in the movie.
- published: 11 Jun 2012
- views: 125891
- author: WWRMalayalam
We are IE - Comparing every version of Internet Explorer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:59
- Updated: 28 Feb 2013
In this video, I install every version of IE to compare them and to test various websites on them. rasteri.blogspot.com
http://wn.com/We_are_IE_Comparing_every_version_of_Internet_Explorer
In this video, I install every version of IE to compare them and to test various websites on them. rasteri.blogspot.com
- published: 17 Mar 2011
- views: 470958
- author: TheRasteri
Wind Explorer - Kiting
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:18
- Updated: 19 Feb 2013
www.wind-explorer.com "The Wind Explorer is a vehicle that seems to come from the future. But it is already reality," said Gion. The special feature of the Wind Explorer is that it is an electric vehicle with its own mobile power supply. When the battery is empty, the pilots can recharge them via a portable wind turbine, if wind conditions allow, or via the conventional power network. It takes half an hour to erect the turbine and six-meter high telescopic mast made of bamboo. In addition to wind power, the Wind Explorer can be driven by kites. In this way, the lightweight vehicle reached speeds of around 80 kph as it crossed the states of Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. The pilots left Perth on January 21, 2011. Having carried out various tests during the first 500 km, the real trip started in Albany on January 26, 2011. For the first 800km to Nullarbor Plain the Wind Explorer was driven entirely by electric power. Strong winds then enabled the pilots to use the kites. Finally, on January 31, 2011, the Wind Explorer achieved its best daily performance, covering 493 km. "It's great to see how lightweight construction and lithium-ion technology can provide a response to the problem of global warming," said Simmerer.
http://wn.com/Wind_Explorer_Kiting
www.wind-explorer.com "The Wind Explorer is a vehicle that seems to come from the future. But it is already reality," said Gion. The special feature of the Wind Explorer is that it is an electric vehicle with its own mobile power supply. When the battery is empty, the pilots can recharge them via a portable wind turbine, if wind conditions allow, or via the conventional power network. It takes half an hour to erect the turbine and six-meter high telescopic mast made of bamboo. In addition to wind power, the Wind Explorer can be driven by kites. In this way, the lightweight vehicle reached speeds of around 80 kph as it crossed the states of Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. The pilots left Perth on January 21, 2011. Having carried out various tests during the first 500 km, the real trip started in Albany on January 26, 2011. For the first 800km to Nullarbor Plain the Wind Explorer was driven entirely by electric power. Strong winds then enabled the pilots to use the kites. Finally, on January 31, 2011, the Wind Explorer achieved its best daily performance, covering 493 km. "It's great to see how lightweight construction and lithium-ion technology can provide a response to the problem of global warming," said Simmerer.
- published: 13 Feb 2011
- views: 125234
- author: WindExplorerChannel
Dora the Explorer - Candy Land
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:36
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
Help Dora and friends on their way to a Candy Land fiesta! Visit www.avanquest.com for more fun games and videos
http://wn.com/Dora_the_Explorer_Candy_Land
Help Dora and friends on their way to a Candy Land fiesta! Visit www.avanquest.com for more fun games and videos
- published: 17 Mar 2008
- views: 28314215
- author: avanquestuk
HTC Explorer android phone full indepth review
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 15:29
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
Indepth full review of the HTC Explorer which is a budget android phone from HTC running Android 2.3 gingerbread. Explorer price in India via flipkart goo.gl Explorer Unboxing video www.youtube.com www.tech2buzz.com
http://wn.com/HTC_Explorer_android_phone_full_indepth_review
Indepth full review of the HTC Explorer which is a budget android phone from HTC running Android 2.3 gingerbread. Explorer price in India via flipkart goo.gl Explorer Unboxing video www.youtube.com www.tech2buzz.com
- published: 17 Feb 2012
- views: 157348
- author: geekyranjit
Explore Touch | Internet Explorer (60s)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:01
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
Explore Touch w/ Blake Lewis and Internet Explorer. Visit www.exploretouch.ie
http://wn.com/Explore_Touch_|_Internet_Explorer_60s
Explore Touch w/ Blake Lewis and Internet Explorer. Visit www.exploretouch.ie
- published: 26 Feb 2013
- views: 67233
- author: internetexplorer
2 - Dora The Explorer - Saves The Snow Princess - Full Game
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:14
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
http://wn.com/2_Dora_The_Explorer_Saves_The_Snow_Princess_Full_Game
NAHSON! - GPS (Ghetto Dora The Explorer)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:34
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
Follow DashieXP: youtube.com twitter.com www.facebook.com youtube.com youtube.com youtube.com
http://wn.com/NAHSON!_GPS_Ghetto_Dora_The_Explorer
Follow DashieXP: youtube.com twitter.com www.facebook.com youtube.com youtube.com youtube.com
- published: 11 Mar 2012
- views: 1200148
- author: nahsonxp2
POOCH YAE by BARNEY AND DORA THE EXPLORER DANCE
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:19
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
Follow the Guys in the Barney and Dora Costumes! @Damarri_Brown & @goddaddydaffy and LAST BUT NOT LEAST go GET THIS SONG!!! Purchase POOCH - Yae On iTunes: itunes.apple.com
http://wn.com/POOCH_YAE_by_BARNEY_AND_DORA_THE_EXPLORER_DANCE
Follow the Guys in the Barney and Dora Costumes! @Damarri_Brown & @goddaddydaffy and LAST BUT NOT LEAST go GET THIS SONG!!! Purchase POOCH - Yae On iTunes: itunes.apple.com
- published: 13 Jun 2010
- views: 7979773
- author: FBIKidsAndDreamTeam
Microsoft - Internet Explorer coming to Xbox 360 this year.
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:39
- Updated: 02 Feb 2013
Twitter: twitter.com Tumblr: SummerWizz1.tumblr.com Facebook App bit.ly Facebook Page: on.fb.me Youtube Channel: youtube.com More Info / Source: www.engadget.com
http://wn.com/Microsoft_Internet_Explorer_coming_to_Xbox_360_this_year
Twitter: twitter.com Tumblr: SummerWizz1.tumblr.com Facebook App bit.ly Facebook Page: on.fb.me Youtube Channel: youtube.com More Info / Source: www.engadget.com
- published: 04 Jun 2012
- views: 2665
- author: SummerWizz1
Dora The Explorer - Carnival Adventure - Game
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:37
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
http://wn.com/Dora_The_Explorer_Carnival_Adventure_Game
Dora Explorer Games - Match Cards puzzle online free kids Gameplay
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:50
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
www.bestonlinekidsgames.com Online match cards puzzle game with Dora the Explorer. Online educational games for little kids.
http://wn.com/Dora_Explorer_Games_Match_Cards_puzzle_online_free_kids_Gameplay
www.bestonlinekidsgames.com Online match cards puzzle game with Dora the Explorer. Online educational games for little kids.
- published: 17 Feb 2011
- views: 4922778
- author: onlinekidsgames
1 - Dora The Explorer - Ballet Adventure - Full Game ( 1 / 3 )
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:01
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
http://wn.com/1_Dora_The_Explorer_Ballet_Adventure_Full_Game_1_3_
Bogart The Explorer: DUMAGUETE
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:42
- Updated: 28 Feb 2013
Year Two of Bogart the Explorer begins with the city of gentle people... Dumaguete! Don't forget to like, share and comment mates :) We'd love to hear your favorite parts in this episode! A special thanks to Mr. Jun Sy and Radio Republic for inviting us to Dagsa. Thank you also to Kuya Jack and of course, Angelo of Dumaguete Outdoors www.dumagueteoutdoors.com for accompanying us in our exploration (We will be airing our short interview with Angelo along with extra footage from the Dumaguete episode on our FB page http of course, to the beautiful and gentle people of Dumaguete... THANK YOU :) Thank you also to everyone who have been supporting us since our first year on YouTube! New year, new episodes! Subscribe and watch all our other videos at www.youtube.com Cheers! Follow Bogart the Explorer on Twitter at @BogartDExplorer ... and watch out for our new blog!
http://wn.com/Bogart_The_Explorer_DUMAGUETE
Year Two of Bogart the Explorer begins with the city of gentle people... Dumaguete! Don't forget to like, share and comment mates :) We'd love to hear your favorite parts in this episode! A special thanks to Mr. Jun Sy and Radio Republic for inviting us to Dagsa. Thank you also to Kuya Jack and of course, Angelo of Dumaguete Outdoors www.dumagueteoutdoors.com for accompanying us in our exploration (We will be airing our short interview with Angelo along with extra footage from the Dumaguete episode on our FB page http of course, to the beautiful and gentle people of Dumaguete... THANK YOU :) Thank you also to everyone who have been supporting us since our first year on YouTube! New year, new episodes! Subscribe and watch all our other videos at www.youtube.com Cheers! Follow Bogart the Explorer on Twitter at @BogartDExplorer ... and watch out for our new blog!
- published: 17 Jan 2013
- views: 43338
- author: FrontActHecklines
Dora the Goth Explorer # 3
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:26
- Updated: 01 Mar 2013
This cartoon is not for little kids. Don't piss Dora off. This cartoon was partially written and voiced by the Theprincessdaisy and was animated and also written and voiced by me. The link to Theprincessdaisy's Youtube Channel is below. www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/Dora_the_Goth_Explorer_3
This cartoon is not for little kids. Don't piss Dora off. This cartoon was partially written and voiced by the Theprincessdaisy and was animated and also written and voiced by me. The link to Theprincessdaisy's Youtube Channel is below. www.youtube.com
- published: 04 Oct 2011
- views: 4471710
- author: tonyfamous
photo: AP / Ibrahim Zayed
26 Feb 2013
Updated. February 26, 2013 8.35AM. LUXOR, Egypt — A hot air balloon flying over Egypt’s ancient city of Luxor caught fire and crashed into a sugar cane field on Tuesday, killing at least 19 foreign tourists in one of the world’s deadliest ballooning accidents and handing a new blow to Egypt’s ailing tourism industry ... The balloon then shot up in the air, the investigator said ... The security official said all 18 bodies have been recovered ... ....(size: 6.2Kb)
photo: AP / Michael Sohn
28 Feb 2013
Pope Benedict pledged his "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his successor Thursday, then left the Vatican as the first Roman Catholic Church leader to resign in 600 years. Benedict flew from the Vatican by helicopter to the papal residence of Castel Gandolfo near Rome, several hours before his eight-year papacy was to end officially at 8 p.m., local time (1900 UTC) ... Peter's Square after he left ... ....(size: 2.5Kb)
photo: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office
27 Feb 2013
Russian President Vladimir Putin told the country's top brass on Wednesday to drastically upgrade the armed forces in the next few years as part of response to attempts by the United States and NATO to "tip the strategic balance" in the world. In his address to Russia's defense ministry and top military officials, Putin said Russia is witnessing "insistent attempts" to change that balance and complained about U.S ... ....(size: 2.3Kb)
photo: USAF / Tech. Sgt. Effrain Lopez
26 Feb 2013
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. During the 19th and early 20th centuries developments in technology vastly transformed warfare. The age of machine guns, steam-powered battle ships, and tanks replaced the era of flintlock muskets, sailing wooden ships, and cannonballs. But these new and more lethal innovations also altered humanity and political systems ... World War I and II ... They will subversively disrupt entire societies....(size: 4.8Kb)
photo: US Coast Guard / PO1 Matthew Belson
27 Feb 2013
A senior BP executive has told a US court that the oil giant was not solely responsible for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Rig operator Transocean and contractor Halliburton must also bear portions of the blame for the explosion and resulting spill, Lamar McKay said. The trial, in New Orleans, will determine liability for the spill ... It has also paid $7.8bn in a settlement with people and businesses affected. 'Team effort' ... ....(size: 5.3Kb)
noodls
01 Mar 2013
African Mining and Exploration plc). African Mining and Exploration / Index ... and exploring additional quality exploration opportunities and utilising the strengths of experienced professionals and partners to deliver significant investment return with managed risk and look forward to reporting on our progress over the coming months." ... African Mining & Exploration plc ... African Mining and Exploration plc (AIM....(size: 4.3Kb)
Stockhouse
01 Mar 2013
Aurora, Ontario CANADA, February 28, 2013 /FSC/ - Tri Origin Exploration Ltd ... Field crews have been mobilized and it is expected that geotechnical surveying will be completed by April in preparation for follow-up exploration and diamond drilling ... The intent of Tri Origin's work is to explore for new gold deposits of the Red Lake Mine-type ... Tri Origin Exploration Ltd ... explore@triorigin.com. Tri Origin Exploration Ltd....(size: 4.1Kb)
noodls
01 Mar 2013
Exploration work continues as a result of these positive indications. Orpheus well-funded for ongoing drilling and exploration activities ... As announced in the company's recent Quarterly Report, a preliminary greenfield exploration program, under the direction of leading Indonesian Geologist, Dr Maran Gulton, commenced in late January. The team was exploring on only one of Orpheus' four Papua tenements, its....(size: 6.0Kb)
noodls
01 Mar 2013
PERTH WA 6000 DRILLING AND EXPLORATION UPDATE ... Regional Exploration - a regional exploration program has commenced. Australian based iron ore exploration and development company, Kogi Iron Limited (ASX ... The step-out program will allow the Company to update its Exploration Target size at the Agbaja ... Regional Exploration Program ... LIMITED Exploration Licences....(size: 5.7Kb)
noodls
01 Mar 2013
in 2012, the Group invested 450 million Yuan (equivalent to USD 71.68 million), and made significant breakthroughs in geological exploration, which discovered 60.45 tonnes of gold, 408,000 tonnes of copper, 2,046,700 tonnes of lead and zinc, 17,200 tonnes of molybdenum , 161,400 tonnes of tungsten, 126.4 tonnes of silver and 1,185,700 tonnes of iron ore ... In 2012, Zijin increased its investment in geological exploration....(size: 5.1Kb)
noodls
01 Mar 2013
Update on Gold Ore Reserves and Mineral Resources, Exploration Results and New Licence Acquisitions ... n Addition of 1.95Moz of gold Mineral Resources (before depletion) due to the success of the Group's 2012 exploration programme; ... Exploration. n Exploration is continuing to deliver positive results, some of which have yet to be fully reflected in Company's Mineral Resource statement; ... EXPLORATION....(size: 37.2Kb)
noodls
01 Mar 2013
Providence Resources P.l.c., ("Providence") the Irish oil and gas exploration and appraisal company, ... sale of its UK onshore assets (comprising the Singleton oil field, Baxter's Copse development project and Burton Down exploration prospect) to IGas Energy Plc for a gross consideration of $66 million ... exploration assets offshore Ireland and the U.K....(size: 3.2Kb)
noodls
01 Mar 2013
(Source. Rockhopper Exploration plc) Rockhopper Exploration plc. 1 March 2013. ROCKHOPPER EXPLORATION PLC (The 'Company'). Total Voting Rights ... The Company does not hold any shares in Treasury at the date of this disclosure ... Rockhopper Exploration plc ... Tel ... Communications) ... This noodl was issued by Rockhopper Exploration plc and was initially posted at www.rockhopperexploration.co.uk....(size: 1.7Kb)
noodls
01 Mar 2013
Pioneer Sets Out Exploration Strategy for 2013. Western Australian explorer Pioneer Resources Limited ("Pioneer", "The Company") (ASX. PIO) today set out its Exploration Strategy for 2013 when it released its December Quarterly Activities Report ... The Company has embarked on an aggressive exploration campaign to realise the substantial potential it believes sits within its portfolio of Projects, all located in Western Australia....(size: 8.6Kb)
BBC News
01 Mar 2013
For a small country Wales has contributed its share to the pantheon of explorers, pioneers and settlers ... There are some really interesting individual stories of Welsh explorers who haven't had the attention that their adventures deserved” End Quote Dr Gethin Matthews Swansea University ... 1634), a Welsh Royal Navy officer who in 1612 went in search of explorer Henry Hudson, missing on another failed quest for the Northwest Passage....(size: 7.9Kb)
noodls
01 Mar 2013
The Grouse Mountain Property Exploration UpdateFebruary 28, 2013 - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada ... (the "Company") is pleased to announce that its technical staff is planning the next phase of exploration on its 100% owned Grouse Mountain Property (the "Property") (see news releases dated May 9, 2007 and October 12, 2011)....(size: 5.9Kb)
noodls
01 Mar 2013
A new campus virtual tour, designed to let prospective students explore the academics, student life and local attractions of Humboldt State University, has been launched at humboldt.edu/explore ... Also included are in-depth slideshows, dubbed "Live," "Learn," and "Explore."...(size: 1.4Kb)
noodls
01 Mar 2013
GPX), the oil and gas production, exploration and development company with activities in Syria, Morocco, Tunisia and the U.S.A., is pleased to announce that it has finalised two exploration and production agreements with the Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos ("ANH") in Colombia with respect to licence areas referred to as Llanos Area 50 and Putumayo Area 14 in the Llanos and Caguan Putumayo Basin respectively....(size: 3.0Kb)
"Explorer" and "Explorers" redirect here. For other uses, see Explorer (disambiguation).
Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain (including space, see space exploration) for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans. In human history, its peak is arguably seen during the Age of Discovery for Europe's contact with the rest of the world, and major explorations after the Age of Discovery for scientific exploration in the modern era.
Contents |
Other uses[link]
The term may also be used metaphorically, for example persons may speak of exploring the internet, sexuality, etc. In scientific research, exploration is one of three purposes of empirical research (the other two being description and explanation). Exploration is the attempt to develop an initial, rough understanding of some phenomenon.
Notable explorers[link]
1550 B.C. to 300 B.C.[link]
- The Phoenicians (1550 B.C. – 300 B.C.) traded throughout the Mediterranean Sea and Asia Minor; many of their routes are still unknown today. The presence of tin in some Phoenician artifacts suggests that they may have traveled to Britain. Some scientists speculate that they voyaged all the way to Central America, although this is disputed. According to Virgil's Aeneid and other ancient sources, the legendary Queen Dido was a Phoenician from Asia Minor who sailed to North Africa and founded the city of Carthage.
4th century BC[link]
- Pytheas (380 – c. 310 BC) – Greek explorer. First to circumnavigate Great Britain and to explore Germany. Reached Thule, most commonly thought to be the Shetland Islands or Iceland.
3rd century BC[link]
- Xu Fu (b. 255 BC) – Chinese court sorcerer who led two voyages to the Eastern Seas in 219 BC and 210 BC.
2nd century BC[link]
- Zhang Qian – Chinese imperial envoy to Central Asia who helped establish the Silk Road.
5th century[link]
- Brendan the Navigator (c. 484 – 577) – Irish monk, allegedly discovered Iceland and America in the 6th century.
8th century[link]
- Dicuil (born 8th century) – Irish monk and geographer, author of "De mensura Orbis terrae".
- The Papar – Irish monks who lived in Iceland, 8th-9th centuries, before the Vikings.
10th century[link]
- Ahmad ibn Fadlan – 10th century Iraqi explorer.
- Erik the Red (950–1003) – Norwegian Viking explorer. After being cast out from Iceland, he sailed to Greenland and settled there.
- Leif Ericson (980–1020) – Icelandic explorer. Believed to have been the first European to land in North america.
13th century[link]
- Friar Julian (traveled in 1235) – Hungarian Dominican friar.
- Marco Polo (1254–1324) – Venetian explorer.[1]
14th century[link]
- Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) – Moroccan explorer.[2]
- Wang Dayuan (fl. 1311–1350) – Chinese explorer who made two major trips by ship. During 1328–1333, he sailed along the South China Sea and visited many places in Southeast Asia and reached as far as South Asia, landing in Sri Lanka and India. In 1334–1339 he visited North Africa and East Africa.
- James of Ireland (fl. 1316–1330) – Irish companion of Odoric of Pordenone.
- Simon FitzSimon (fl. 1323) – Irish author of a itenerum through Egypt and the Holy Land.
- Zheng He (1371–1433) – Chinese admiral who made seven voyages to Arabia, East Africa, India, Indonesia and Thailand.
15th century[link]
- Afanasy Nikitin (? – 1472) - Russian traveler and merchant. One of the first Europeans to travel to and document his visit to India.
- João Fernandes Lavrador (1445? – 1501) – Portuguese explorer. First European reaching Labrador/Newfoundland. Fernandes charted the coasts of Southwestern Greenland and of adjacent Northeastern North America around 1498. In 1501, Fernandes set sail again in discovery of lands and was never heard from again.
- John Cabot (c. 1450–1499) – Italian explorer for England. Discovered Newfoundland and claimed it for the Kingdom of England.
- Bartolomeu Dias (c. 1450–1500) – Portuguese explorer. He sailed from Portugal and reached the Cape of Good Hope.
- Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) – Genoese explorer for Spain. Sailed west in 1492 attempting to reach Asia, but instead discovered America, the "New World".
- Amerigo Vespucci (c. 1454–1512) – Italian explorer for Spain and Portugal. Sailed in 1499 and 1502. He explored the east coast of South America.
- Juan Ponce de León (c. 1460–1521) – Spanish explorer. He explored Florida while attempting to locate the legendary Fountain of Youth.
- Piri Reis (c. 1465/1470–1554/1555) – Ottoman explorer.
- Pedro Álvares Cabral (c. 1467 – c. 1520) – Portuguese explorer, generally regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil.
- Vasco da Gama (c. 1469–1524) – Portuguese explorer. The first European to sail from Europe to India by rounding the Cape of Good Hope.
- João Fernandes Lavrador (1445? – 1501) – Portuguese explorer. First European reaching Labrador/Newfoundland. Fernandes charted the coasts of Southwestern Greenland and of adjacent Northeastern North America around 1498. In 1501, Fernandes set sail again in discovery of lands and was never heard from again.
- John Cabot (c. 1450–1499) – Italian explorer for England. Discovered Newfoundland and claimed it for the Kingdom of England.
- Bartolomeu Dias (c. 1450–1500) – Portuguese explorer. He sailed from Portugal and reached the Cape of Good Hope.
- Juan Ponce de León (c. 1460–1521) – Spanish explorer. He explored Florida while attempting to locate the legendary Fountain of Youth.
- Piri Reis (c. 1465/1470–1554/1555) – Ottoman explorer.
- Pedro Álvares Cabral (c. 1467 – c. 1520) – Portuguese explorer, generally regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil.
- Vasco da Gama (c. 1469–1524) – Portuguese explorer. The first European to sail from Europe to India by rounding the Cape of Good Hope.
16th century[link]
- Vasco Núñez de Balboa (c. 1475–1519) – Spanish explorer and discoverer of the Pacific Ocean. The first European to cross the Isthmus of Panama and view the Pacific ocean from American shores.
- Francisco Pizarro (c. 1475–1541) – Spanish explorer. Conquered the Inca Empire.
- Juan Sebastián Elcano (1476–1526) – Spanish explorer. Completed the first circumnavigation of the globe in a single expedition after its captain, Magellan, was killed.
- Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) – Portuguese explorer for Spain. Initiated the first circumnavigation of the globe in a single expedition. Sailed through Strait of Magellan and named Pacific Ocean. Died in the Philippines after claiming them for Spain.
- Giovanni da Verrazzano (c. 1485–1528) – Italian explorer for France. Explored the northeast coast of America, from about present day South Carolina to Newfoundland.
- Hernán Cortés (1485–1545) – Spanish explorer. Conquered the Aztec Empire for Spain.
- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (c. 1488–1557) – Spanish explorer of the New World, one of four survivors of the Narváez expedition.
- García Jofre de Loaísa (1490–1526) - Spanish explorer. First navigator to sail from Europe to the Western coast of North America. Crossed the Pacific Ocean from Mexico, exploring the Philippines and Spice Islands. His expedition was the second to circumnavigate the world (after Magellan and Elcano in 1522) though Loaísa died before completing it.
- Jacques Cartier (1491–1557) – French explorer. Discovered Canada.
- Hernando de Soto (c. 1496–1542) – Spanish explorer. Explored Florida, mainly northwest Florida, and discovered the Mississippi River.
- Andrés de Urdaneta (1498–1568) was a Spanish circumnavigator, explorer and Augustinian friar. As a navigator he achieved the second world circumnavigation in 1536, and discovered the eastern martime path across the Pacific (from Asia to America) also known as Urdaneta's Route or tornaviaje (Spanish).
- João Rodrigues Cabrilho (Spanish: Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo; ca. 1499 – January 3, 1543) was a Portuguese explorer noted for his exploration of the west coast of North America on behalf of Spain. Cabrillo was the first European explorer to navigate the coast of present day California in the United States. He helped found the city of Oaxaca, in Mexico
- Francisco Vásquez de Coronado (c. 1510–1554) – Spanish explorer. Searched for the Seven Cities of Gold and discovered the Grand Canyon in the process.
- Francisco de Orellana (1511–1546) – Spanish explorer, in 1541–42 sailed the length of the Amazon River.
- Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1532–1592) – Spanish explorer of the Pacific.
- Yermak Timofeyevich (c. 1532-1585) - Russian cossack leader and explorer. Conquered the Khanate of Siberia.
- Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540–1596) – English explorer. The first English captain to sail around the world and survive. Second European to explore the West Coast of North America North of Baja and as far North as Drake's Bay.
- Alvaro de Mendaña de Neyra (1541–1596) – Spanish explorer of the Pacific. His first expedition in 1567 discovered Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands, and his second expedition (1595) discovered the Marquesas Islands.
- Yñigo Ortiz de Retez (1545-?) was a Spanish maritime explorer. His expedition crossed the Pacific from South America reaching the northern coastline of New Guinea bestowing the island's name (Nueva Guinea in Spanish).
- Willem Barentsz (1550–1597) – Dutch navigator and explorer, leader of early expeditions to the far north.
- Pedro Páez (1564–1622) – Spanish missionary was the first European who saw and described the source of the Blue Nile.
17th century[link]
- Luis Váez de Torres (born c. 1565; fl. 1607) – Spanish or Portuguese navigator. Explored the Pacific in the service of the Spanish Crown. As part of the Queiros expedition of 1606, he discovered the Straits that bear his name in northern Australia.
- Pedro Fernandes de Queirós (1565–1614) – Portuguese navigator at the service of the Spanish Crown. Explored the South Pacific in the early 17th century. Discovered present-day Vanuatu and Pitcairn Islands in 1606. Some historians believe he also discovered Australia.[3]
- Henry Hudson (1611) – English explorer. Explored much of the North Atlantic, including Labrador, the coast of Greenland, and Hudson Bay. Presumed dead in a 1611 mutiny of his own crew.
- António de Andrade (1580–1634) – Portuguese explorer. First European reaching Tibet. His reports were the only account of the Tibet culture and geography until the second half of the 18th century.
- Samuel de Champlain (1567/80-1635). - French explorer. He explored parts of Canada.
- Semyon Dezhnyov (1605 – 1672). - Russian explorer of Siberia and the first European to sail through the Bering Strait.
- Yerofey Khabarov (1603-1671). - Russian entrepreneur, best known for his exploring the Amur river region.
- Abel Tasman (1603–1659) – Dutch explorer. Discovered New Zealand and Tasmania.
- Evliya Çelebi (1611–1682) – Ottoman traveller.
- Edmond Halley (1656–1742) -In 1690, Halley patented the diving bell. In 1698, Halley was given the command of the HMS Paramour, a 52-foot Pink, so that he could carry out investigations in the South Atlantic into the laws governing the variation of the compass.
18th century[link]
- Vitus Bering (1681–1741) – Danish explorer. Explored the Siberian Far East and Alaska and claimed it for Russia.
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (May 26, 1689 – August 21, 1762) – explored Turkey.
- Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) – Swedish biologist. His six month expedition to Lapland in 1732 described about one hundred previously unknown plants.
- Juan José Pérez Hernández (1725-1775) - Spanish explorer. First European to sail the American Pacific Northwest.
- James Cook (1728–1779) – British naval commander. Explored much of the Pacific including New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii.
- Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (23 August 1741 – ?1788) – French naval captain. Lapérouse was appointed in 1785 by Louis XVI and his minister of marine, Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix, marquis de Castries, to lead an expedition around the world. He vanished in Oceania with the remains of his expedition being found later in 1826 at the island of Vanikoro, which is part of the Santa Cruz group of islands. Lapérouse was a significant French figure of the Age of Enlightenment.
- Esteban Jose Martinez (1742-1798) - Spanish explorer and navigator. Played a key role in the exploration of the Pacific Northwest. He established the first Spanish settlement in the region: Santa Cruz de Nuca on Nootka Sound in Vancouver Island.
- Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra (1744-1794) - Spanish navigator. Explored the Northwest Coast of America as far north as present day Alaska. Vancouver Island was originally named "Quadra and Vancouver Island" after Bodega y Quadra and George Vancouver.
- Alessandro Malaspina (1754–1810) – Italian explorer. Explored the Pacific and the west coast of North America in the service of Spanish Crown.
- Salvador Fidalgo (1756-1803) - Spanish navigator and explorer of the Pacific Northwest. His expedition explored northern Canada and Alaska including Cordova Bay and Port Valdez in Prince William Sound, as well as Kodiak Island and Nanwalek, southwest of Anchorage.
- Alexander MacKenzie (1764–1820) – Scottish-Canadian explorer who in 1789, looking for the Northwest Passage, followed the river now named after him to the Arctic Ocean and then in 1793 crossed the Rockies and reached the Pacific in 1793, thus beating Lewis and Clark by 12 years.
- José María Narváez (1768-1840) Spanish explorer and navigator, notable for his expeditions in the Pacific Northwest of present-day Canada. He was the first Spaniard to make contact with a large contingent of Russians in Alaska.
- Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) – German explorer and scientist whose work was foundational to the field of biogeography.
- Mungo Park (1771–1806) – the first Westerner to discover the Niger River; he was the first Western explorer to reach Timbuktu, though he didn't live to share his discovery with the world.
19th century[link]
- Ivan Krusenstern (1770-1846) - Russian explorer, who led the first Russian circumnavigation of the earth.
- Captain Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809) – American explorer and field scientist who led the Lewis and Clark Expedition into the Louisiana Purchase and the Pacific Northwest in 1804–1806.
- Matthew Flinders (1774-18144) - Australian explorer and cartographer. First person to circumnavigate Australia.
- Sir John Franklin (1786-1847) – British explorer, surveyed the coast of the Polar Sea between 1819 and 1824; died on his final Arctic expedition in 1845.
- Mikhail Lazarev (1788-1851) - Russian fleet commander and explorer who discovered Antarctica.
- Edward Sabine(October 14, 1788 – May 26, 1883) – Irish participant in the Ross and Perry Arctic expeditions.
- Sacagawea (c. 1788 – December 20, 1812) – accompanied and assisted Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806), the first American overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back.
- Thomas Coulter (1793–1843) – Irish botanist and explorer of Mexico and Arizona.
- Charles Wilkes (April 3, 1798 – February 8, 1877) – American naval officer and explorer who commanded the United States Exploring Expedition.
- George Fletcher Moore (10 December 1798 – 30 December 1886) – early Irish explorer of Australia.
- Pierre-Jean De Smet (1801–1873) – Belgian missionary and explorer in North America.
- David Livingstone (1813–1873) – Scottish missionary and explorer in central Africa. He was the first European to see Victoria Falls, which he named in honour of Queen Victoria.
- John Rae (1813–1893) – Scottish doctor in Northern Canada. He discovered a Northwest Passage and reported the fate of the Franklin Expedition.
- Robert O'Hara Burke (1821 – c. 28 June 1861) – Irish leader of the Burke and Wills expedition.
- Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) – English explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat; known for his travels and explorations within Asia and Africa as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures; according to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian, and African languages.
- Pyotr Semenov-Tyan-Shansky (1827 – 1914) - Russian geographer and explorer. He discovered the Altay Mountains and Tian Shan.
- Isabella Bird (October 15, 1831 – October 7, 1904) – the first woman inducted into the Royal Geographical Society; she travelled extensively, exploring the Far East, Central Asia, and the American West.
- Nikolai Przhevalsky (1839—1888) - Russian geographer and explorer of Central and Eastern Asia.
- Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) – Welsh journalist and explorer in central Africa best remembered for his search for David Livingstone, and upon finding him saying: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
- Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza (1852–1905) - Franco-Italian explorer and colonial administrator, known for his humanitarian principles and egalitarian treatment of native workers in French Equatorial Africa. He founded the city later named Brazzaville in his honor.[4]
- Otto Sverdrup (1854–1930) – Norwegian explorer. Joined Fridtjof Nansen across Greenland in 1888 and captain on the Fram on the polar drift in 1893–1896 and the 2nd Fram expedition in 1898–1902. Mapped the Northernmost part of Canada in 1898–1902.
- Harry De Windt (1856–1933) – British explorer and member of the Royal Geographical Society. Travelled overland from Paris to New York via Siberia in 1901–1902. Writer of books about his many expeditions.
- George Comer (1858–1937) – American polar explorer. The Comer Strait of northern Southampton Island and the Gallinula comeri flightless bird of Gough Island were named in his honor.
- Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930) – Norwegian explorer, scientist and diplomat. He was the first to cross the Greenland ice cap in 1888, and he drifted across the Arctic Ocean aboard the Fram in 1893–1896, making an attempt to reach the North Pole with Hjalmar Johansen.
- Mary Kingsley (October 13, 1862 – June 3, 1900) – explored the Upper Ogawe River in Gabon and journeyed alone into unknown regions of the Congo jungle.
- Roald Amundsen (1872–1928) – Norwegian explorer. He led the first successful Antarctic expedition between 1910 and 1912. He was also the first ever person to successfully traverse the North West Passage.
- Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) – Anglo-Irish Explorer, noted for his ill-fated Endurance expedition to Antarctica.
- Hiram Bingham III (1875–1956) – U.S. Senator from Connecticut and explorer best known for uncovering Machu Picchu.
- Robert Bartlett (1875–1946) – Newfoundland captain. Led over 40 expeditions to the Arctic, more than anyone before or since. Was the first to sail north of 88° N latitude.
- Tom Crean (20 July 1877 – 27 July 1938) – Irish Antarctic explorer.
- Knud Rasmussen (1879–1933) – Greenlandic polar explorer and anthropologist. Rasmussen was the first to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled.
- Auguste Piccard (1884–1962) – physicist, balloonist, hydronaut. Explored the stratosphere and the deep sea.
- Mulford B. Foster (1888–1978) – American horticulturist known for extensive plant explorations of South America. Collected thousands of species of plants for the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution. Discovered more new species of bromeliads than the previous plants explorers Andre and Glaziou.[5][6]
- Richard Evelyn Byrd (1888–1957) - US naval officer whose expeditions may have been the first to reach the North Pole and the South Pole by air.
- Ahmed Pasha Hassanein (1889–1946) – Egyptian explorer, diplomat, one of two non-European winners of Gold Medal of Royal Geographical Society in 1924, King's chamberlain, fencing participant to 1924 Olympics, photographer, author and discoverer of Jebel Uweinat, and writer of "The Lost Oases" book in three languages.[7]
- Freya Stark (January 31, 1893, Paris, France – May 9, 1993) – not only one of the first Western women to travel through the Arabian deserts (Hadhramaut); she often traveled solo into areas where few Europeans, let alone women, had ever been.
20th century[link]
- Colonel Noel Andrew Croft (1906–1998) – held the record for the longest self-sustaining journey across the Arctic in the 1930s for 60 years.
- Eric Shipton (1908–1977) and Bill Tillman (1898–1977) – British climbing pair who pioneered alpine style mountaineering. Became the first to penetrate the Nanda Devi Sanctuary in India (later summited by Tillman). Shipton went on to lead early reconnaissances of Mount Everest while Tillman led deep-sea sailing explorations.
- Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (1919–2008) – New Zealand explorer, together with Tenzing Norgay, the first to climb Mount Everest on May 29, 1953.
- Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997) – French naval officer, explorer and early underwater pioneer. Instrumental in the development of scuba diving and of underwater marine research and explorations.
- Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) – British explorer and travel writer who explored remote areas of Africa, the Karakoram and the Middle East. Crossed the Empty Quarter of the Arabian pensinsula twice on foot.
- Sir Wally Herbert (24 October 1934 – 12 June 2007) – British polar explorer who became the first to cross the Arctic Ocean across its longest axis (1968-69), and the first undisputed man to reach the North Pole on foot, on 6 April 1969.
- Yuri Gagarin (March 9, 1934 – March 27, 1968) – Soviet cosmonaut who on April 12, 1961 became the first man in space and the first human to orbit Earth.
- Neil Armstrong (b. August 5, 1930) – American astronaut – First human being to set foot on the Moon on July 20, 1969.
- Chris Bonington (b. August 6, 1934) – British climber and alpinist. Notable for daring first ascents in the Himalaya and Antarctica including Baintha Brakk and a first solo ascent in the Vinson Massif.
- Valentina Tereshkova (b. 1937) – one of the first people in space; first female cosmonaut.
- Robert Ballard (b. 1942) – undersea explorer; discovered the shipwreck of the RMS Titanic.
- Ranulph Fiennes (b. 7 March 1944) – British adventurer. First journey around the world on its polar axis using surface transport only, covered 52,000 miles and visited both poles by land. First unsupported crossing of Antarctica.
- Reinhold Messner (b. September 17, 1944) – Italian mountaineer, first man to climb all the 14 peaks higher than 8,000 meters (all without the use of supplemental oxygen).
- E. Lee Spence (b. 1947) – undersea explorer and pioneer underwater archaeologist: discovered numerous shipwrecks including H.L. Hunley the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship; and the Georgiana, said to have been the most powerful Confederate cruiser.
- Robyn Davidson (b. September 6, 1950) – the first person to make a solo crossing of the Australian Outback by camel; she also explored the remote desert regions of India.[8]
- Michael Asher (b. 1953) – British adventurer. In 1986–1987 Michael Asher and his wife, Italian-born photographer and Arabist, Mariantonietta Peru, made the first ever west-east crossing of the Sahara desert by camel and on foot.
- Liv Arnesen (b. June 1, 1953) – the first woman to ski solo and unassisted to the South Pole; she was also one of the two first women to cross the Antarctic continent.
- Conrad Anker (b. November 27, 1962) – American rock climber and alpinist. Notable for first ascents of challenging climbs in North America, Patagonia, Antarctica and the Himalaya.
- Peter Bray (b. 1957) – British explorer and former British SAS officer. Became the first person to kayak solo across the Atlantic without the assistance of a sail to help with paddling.
- Rory Stewart (b. 3 January 1973) – British explorer, travel writer and politician. In 2001, he crossed Afghanistan on foot in the opening months of the war as a part of a 6,000 kilometre trek across the Asian continent.
- Ed Stafford (b. 26 December 1975) – British explorer. Walked the entire length of the Amazon River.
- Kira Salak (b. September 4, 1971) – a National Geographic Emerging Explorer,[9] Salak was the first woman to cross the island of New Guinea. Salak has done solo exploration to regions such as Borneo, Libya, Iran, Madagascar, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[10]
See also[link]
- Adventure
- Chronology of European exploration of Asia
- European exploration of Africa
- Expedition
- Explorers Grand Slam
- History of Antarctica
- Timeline of European exploration
Lists[link]
Types of exploration[link]
- Arctic exploration
- Cave exploration
- Desert exploration
- Mineral exploration
- Ocean exploration
- Space exploration
- Urban exploration
References[link]
- ^ Silkroad Foundation, Adela C.Y. Lee. "Ancient Silk Road Travellers". Silk-road.com. http://www.silk-road.com/artl/srtravelmain.shtml. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
- ^ Battuta's Travels[dead link]
- ^ Cardinal Moran's Discovery of Australia by de Quirós in the Year 1606 [1]
- ^ Petringa, Maria (January 1997). "Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza". Harvard Magazine. http://harvardmagazine.com/1997/01/vita.html. Retrieved 31 March 2010.
- ^ Padilla, Victoria. "Mulford B. Foster". Journal of the Bromeliad Society, 1978. Vol 28, #6, pg 243–244
- ^ "A Bibliography of Plant Collectors in Bolivia" (PDF). http://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/Botany/pdf_hi/sctb-0070.pdf.
- ^ "The World of Ahmed Bey Hassanein". SaharaSafaris. 18 March 2007. http://saharasafaris.org/hassaneinbey/index.htm. Retrieved 31 March 2010.
- ^ "Robyn Davidson book". http://www.amazon.com/dp/0679762876.
- ^ "National Geographic Explorer Kira Salak". http://www.nationalgeographic.com/field/explorers/kira-salak.html.
- ^ Salak, Kira. "Kira Salak's official website". http://www.kirasalak.com/index.html.
Further reading[link]
- Petringa, Maria (2006). Brazzà, a Life for Africa. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. ISBN 1-4259-1198-6. OCLC 74651678.
External links[link]
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Look up exploration in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
- National Geographic Explorer Program
- NOAA Ocean Explorer - provides public access to current information on a series of NOAA scientific and educational explorations and activities in the marine environment
- NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research - formed by the merger of NOAA’s Undersea Research Program (NURP) and the Office of Ocean Exploration (OE)
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http://hi.wn.com/खोजी यात्रा
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
Not to be confused with Dora the Female Explorer.
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This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help improve the article by updating it. There may be additional information on the talk page. (December 2011) |
| Dora the Explorer | |
|---|---|
 Logo |
|
| Genre | Children Adventure |
| Created by | Chris Gifford Valerie Walsh Valdes Eric Weiner |
| Directed by | George S. Chialtas Gary Conrad Henry Lenardin-Madden Sherie Pollack Arnie Wong |
| Voices of | Caitlin Sanchez, Kathleen Herles, Fatima Ptacek as Dora the Explorer Harrison Chad, Regan Mizrahi as Boots the Monkey Marc Weiner as Swiper Sasha Toto and Alexandria Suarez as Backpack |
| Theme music composer | Joshua Sitron Billy Straus |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English Spanish (Teaches Spanish) |
| No. of seasons | 6 |
| No. of episodes | 118 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Chris Gifford |
| Editor(s) | Gayle McIntyre Karyn Finley Powell David Wigforss |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Nickelodeon, Nick Jr |
| Original run | August 14, 2000 (2000-08-14) – present |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Go, Diego, Go! |
File:Dora and Boots.jpg
From left to right: Swiper (in background), Dora, and Boots
Dora the Explorer is an American animated television series created by Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh, and Eric Weiner. Dora the Explorer became a regular series in 2000. The show is carried on the Nickelodeon cable television network, including the associated Nick Jr. channel. It aired on CBS until September 2006. A Spanish-dubbed version first aired as part of a Nick en español block on NBC Universal-owned Telemundo through September 2006; since April 2008, this version of the program has been carried on Univision as part of the Planeta U block.
Contents |
Characters[link]
Dora Marquez[link]
Dora, the main character, is an eight-year-old girl who embarks on a trip in every episode in order to find something or help somebody. She asks the viewers at home to help her find new ways to reach places with the help of Map. She also teaches viewers Spanish, introducing them to short words and phrases.
Dora has a positive view of the characters she meets, failing even to hold a grudge against the mischievous fox, Swiper, who continually attempts to steal items from her party. She acts against villains only when it seems that compromise is impossible, and even in these cases, fails to display actual anger. She gives others a chance to try their hands at tasks even when she herself might have an easier time with them. Dora values her family, whom she loves openly, though she spends little time indoors at home with them. She tries to introduce her traditions and customs, subtly and without compulsion, to those who are not familiar with them.
Dora is fond of Boots, who became her best friend when she saved his beloved red boots from being swiped by Swiper.
Dora enjoys sports. She played on a baseball team with Boots and her other friends and was coached by her father (who has never been depicted as having other employment). She loves and excels at soccer. Dora is also a musician, skilled at playing a wooden flute.
The character was voiced by Kathleen Herles until she was replaced by Caitlin Sanchez and replaced with another voice actress Fatima Ptacek.[1]
Dora is a Latina. Early concepts of Dora had her as a blond girl of European ancestry. The character was originally based on a niece, Lilli, of Rick Velleu, one of the creators of the show.[citation needed]
Boots the Monkey[link]
Boots, the 5-year-old monkey whom Dora met one day in the forest, is her best friend. He is friendly and enthusiastic, and usually wears nothing but his beloved red boots, hence his name. He is light blue with a yellow stomach. His parents look similar, with variations in eyes, height, clothing and fur.
Boots is present with Dora on most of her adventures, and he helps her solve clues and puzzles. He also loves baseball and is on Dora's team. He enjoys riding Rojo the fire truck.
Boots is athletic and energetic. He performs a series of acrobatic flips, somersaults, and cartwheels along the way to their destination. His light weight also makes him easy to carry, even for Dora.
Without guidance from Dora, the viewer, or another character, Boots is quick to take his own, often dangerous or dead-ended, route. Dora often acts as the voice of reason.
Boots "loves" many things. In one episode, he would say many times "I love riddles. Call me 'Mr. Riddles'" or "I love nuts, I love chocolate, I love my ball, and I love, love, love...". Most importantly, however, Boots loves Dora and Dora loves him back, as expressed verbally and physically in numerous episodes. His devotion and love always has Boots more than willing to drop whatever he is doing at the moment for Dora. For her sake, he has even engaged in adventures on his own, assisted by the viewers.
Boots' vocabulary is limited but steadily increasing. Dora teaches him Spanish through memorable songs and phrases.
Boots was voiced by Harrison Chad in the original English version and then, from season five onwards, by Regan Mizrahi.
Swiper the Fox[link]
Swiper is a sneaky fox in a blue mask and gloves, who is the antagonist of the TV series and appears in nearly every episode. He is voiced by Marc Weiner. As his name implies, Swiper steals or attempts to steal key items that help Dora on her adventures. Clever as he is, Swiper never manages to take Dora completely by surprise; an ominous "whisking" sound is always audible just prior to his appearances.
To prevent Swiper from success, Dora must repeat the phrase, "Swiper, no swiping!" three times. Usually she prevails, and Swiper slinks away, snapping his fingers and saying, "Oh, man!"; sometimes, however, Swiper gets to the item before Dora has a chance to repeat the phrase. He then gloats, "You're too late!," and frequently states "You'll never find it now! Ha, ha, ha!!," as he throws the item away.
Swiper's motive for theft is patently childish; he never seems actually to want the object he takes, since he almost immediately throws it away to hide it from Dora (prompting her to ask the audience to help her find it). Until recently, it was unclear if he swipes merely for the joy of swiping, or from a desire to annoy and frustrate Dora. Compounding the confusion is the fact that, given the right reason, for example, that the item in question is a present for Dora's puppy, he will return items he has taken, no matter how much effort he went through to get them. It is also shown that he rarely knows the full importance of what he has taken; for example, he had no idea the aforementioned gift was for Dora's puppy. In the episode "Dora Saves the Mermaids", he revealed that he "liked swiping." He has some kind of New York accent, and lives in a burrow on top of Blueberry Hill.
Swiper is very fast and agile, and something of a master of disguise. He seems to have a great deal of technical knowledge, as he has built a variety of vehicles and gadgets (including a remote-controlled robot butterfly) to help him swipe things. Most of the time, however, he simply relies on his natural stalking abilities (sometimes with the aid of a costume) to sneak up on Dora. In the early episodes he often "hid" by curling up into a ball, which neither Dora nor Boots ever recognized as Swiper; he apparently does not do this anymore.
He has only been seen once or twice without his mask, when the robot butterfly he built to swipe from Dora and Boots (in the episode "Dora's Got a Puppy") apparently malfunctioned; after they stopped the robot butterfly, it swiped his mask and gloves and kept them from him for a few humorous seconds.
His grandmother has been mentioned in two episodes: "A Letter For Swiper" and "Swiper the Explorer," and finally made an appearance in "Swiper's Favorite Things." His parents are never seen, and it is unclear whether or not he has any siblings.
Over the course of the series, it is shown that there is more to Swiper's character than an urge to swipe things. In one episode it was revealed that Swiper has a soft spot for puppies, and in another that he likes Cowboy cookies. In a few episodes, he expresses feelings of joy with a fox-like cry of, "Yip-yip-yippee!" In the episode "A Letter For Swiper", Dora filled in for a delivery bird whose glasses were broken; Dora delivered stickers to Swiper (which were sent by his grandmother), and he thanked her for it without trying to swipe anything. In the episode "Swiper the Explorer", Swiper helps Dora on her quest to help Baby Fox find its mommy, and Swiper carries the baby fox almost all through the episode. Also in this episode, it is revealed that Swiper does not speak Spanish, and wishes that he did. Over the course of a few episodes and specials, it can be clearly seen that swiper is very shy, such as in Christmas Carol Adventure, when he was nervous and didn't want to ask the Grumpy old troll how the capes worked. If Swiper fails to swipe something, is sad, or gets in trouble, he will utter his catch phrase of "Oohhh Maaann," such as in the episode "Dance To The Rescue," when Elf and Cane initially trick Swiper and trap him in the magic bottle.
The interaction between Dora and the antagonistic fox also reveals the kindness and grace of Dora's character. In one episode, "Dora's Dance to the Rescue", Swiper took pity on a Dancing Elf who was caught in a magic bottle, similar to a genie. The elf tricked the sympathetic Swiper into removing the bottle's cork, thereby releasing the elf and his talking cane. Unfortunately, the wily fox was thereby entrapped in his place. Stuck and desperate, Swiper called out to Dora and Boots. The remainder of the episode chronicled an epic adventure involving most of the land's creatures, eventually ending with the release of Swiper after a dance contest. The episode was atypical as it involved many dances and songs, and demonstrated a close, unconflicted relationship between Swiper and the other creatures.
In this and several other episodes, Swiper finds himself captured, trapped, or in some sort of trouble. Despite his history of mean-spiritedness toward Dora, she demonstrates that the fox is her friend (which he doesn't find out until "Dora's World Adventure") and will always unquestioningly help Swiper just as she would her other friends, Benny, Isa, Boots, and Tico. If Dora needs his help he will come to her aid in the same manner.
In "Dora's Christmas Carol Adventure," another atypical episode, Swiper's love of swiping ends up getting him on Santa's naughty list, when he fails to heed Santa's warnings about swiping on Christmas. At first, everyone dismisses what has happened, but Dora immediately insists on helping Swiper, as nobody, not even Swiper deserves to be on Santa's naughty list. After asking Santa if she can do something, Santa sends Dora and Swiper on an epic quest through time to help Swiper get off the naughty list. Upon coming back, Swiper initially fails his quest, but everyone then expresses that Swiper is their friend and that they want to share their gifts with him because they care about him, despite all the things he's done. It is at this point Swiper learns the true meaning of Christmas, and tries to give Dora his most prized possession, a stuffed bunny he had since he was really young. Dora refuses to accept it, but suggests that they can share it, and Swiper shares his bunny with her. Upon seeing him share his bunny, Santa returns and puts Swiper back on the nice list. It is then revealed that Swiper shared his gifts and didn't swipe anything every Christmas after that.
Swiper is far from being unable to feel guilty for his actions. In the episode "A Present For Santa", Swiper returns the present that he swiped, upon discovering that it was for Santa. In "Dora's Christmas Carol Adventure," Swiper travels through time and begins to regret his actions in the past and future, including making his friends cry when they were babies, and littering on Christmas Eve. In the episode "Dora's World Adventure", Swiper helps Dora return the friendship bracelets he had swiped all over the world, and was shown to feel guilty once he discovered the magnitude of what he'd done and what he had stolen. During this time Swiper gets a taste of his own medicine, so to speak, as each country they visit has its own "Swiper", only of different species, who tries to steal the bracelets: Fifi the skunk in France, Sami the hyena in Tanzania, Fomkah the bear in Russia, and Ying Ying the weasel in China. All of them act and dress nearly identically to Swiper and are stopped in the same way he is: by saying their name, followed by "no swiping" three times. Then they run off, saying Swiper's catch phrase, "Ohh, maann" in the local language. Their entrances are also preluded by a sound, only with local music; e.g. Ying Ying has a chau gong playing.
Fiesta Trio[link]
Whenever Dora and Boots are successful in a given portion of their quest (quests are usually divided into three portions), the Fiesta Trio appears from seemingly nowhere to congratulate Dora and celebrate for a brief few seconds with music. The Fiesta Trio is a group of three small animals: a grasshopper, a snail, and a frog. The trio are occasionally unable to complete their music as a result of something going on in the scene, such as when they are startled by a bear that is chasing Dora and Boots in one episode.
Backpack[link]
Dora's purple Backpack (originally voiced by Sasha Toro, and currently voiced by Alexandria Suarez beginning with the fifth season[2]), provides whatever Dora needs to complete her quests. The backpack is a magic satchel, which has been known to produce large items, including multiple ladders, two complete space suits (one each for Dora and Boots) and other items that simply could not fit inside it. Backpack seems to have a lot of extra space within her fabric to be held in such a small area. It was given to Dora as a present by her mother and father. To make the Backpack open up, Dora asks the viewers at home to say "Backpack". The Backpack then sings a little introduction and asks the viewers at home to choose what Dora needs from among the Backpack's contents. Afterwards, the remaining contents go back into Backpack, who says, "Yum yum yum yum yum, ¡delicioso!" ("Delicious!")
Map[link]
The Map (voiced by Marc Weiner) provides travel guidance and advice. When not being consulted, the rolled-up Map resides in a side pocket on the Backpack; to make the Map come out, Dora asks the viewers at home to say "Map." This is the Map's cue to introduce himself to the audience with a repetitive song, which is short in some episodes and longer in others, and describe the path Dora has to take on her quest.
Usually the Map does not do anything more than the actions described above, but in a few episodes he plays a more active role, especially in the episode "Super Map"; the Map finds a small red cape that gives him Superman-like powers, and he uses them to help Dora on her current quest. Map inexplicably gives up the cape, and his super powers, at the end of the episode.
Isa the Iguana[link]
Isa the 9 year old Iguana is a very close friend of Dora's and an even closer friend of Boots. Isa is a skilled gardener and loves to grow mainly flowers of all kinds. She even presents her mom with a bouquet of flowers she grew herself as a Mother's Day gift.
At times, her problem solving skills prove to be invaluable for her friends and even herself made all the more disposal by her naturally acquired ability to blend into surroundings at will.
Isa also seems to have a bit of a crush on Boots, whom she knew long before she ever met Dora. She greats both Dora and Boots equally but Isa always greets Boots more shyly than Dora. She was first voiced by Ashley Flemming, and is now being done by Lenique Vincent.
[edit] Tico the Squirrel
Tico the Squirrel (who has been voiced by Muhammed Cunningham, Jose Zelaya and currently by Jean Carlos Celi) is a friend of Dora's who lives in the forest and who speaks Spanish and very rarely English (one occasion when he said "You're welcome" in English). He wears a colorful striped vest, and is usually seen driving his little yellow car, although he has been known to travel in a variety of vehicles, from helicopters to boats. He has purple fur, a round body, and small triangular stumps for arms and legs.
Tico's function on the show is to help Dora teach the audience words and phrases in Spanish; Dora has to tell Tico something in Spanish, such as "Faster" or "Look out", and she asks the viewers at home to say it along with her. In some episodes, a different Spanish-speaking character (such as Señor Tucán) appears instead of Tico.
In the episode "Dora's First Trip", it was established that Boots had been friends with Tico before Dora met either of them, despite the fact that Boots and Tico speak two different languages.
Benny the Bull[link]
Benny the Bull (voiced by Jake Burbage until 2009, now by Matthew Gumley) is a friend of Dora's who lives in a barn, loves to eat, and often rides in a hot air balloon. He is mostly blue with little yellow horns, stands on his hind legs, is a little taller than Dora, and wears a blue bandanna with white polka dots around his neck.
Benny sometimes provides Dora with something that she needs on her current quest. In the episode "Swiper the Explorer", Dora needed something for the Baby Fox to drink, and Benny's picnic basket just happened to contain a carton of milk and a baby bottle ("Now, why did I pack that?"). In the episode "Dance to the Rescue", Dora and Boots needed fancy clothes to be allowed into King Bobo's castle, and Benny happened to have a gown and a bow tie in the basket of his balloon.
In the episode "Boots' Cuddly Dinosaur", Benny said that he can not sleep without nine dolls which he calls his "guys."
Despite having the same name, this character is not the same as the mascot of the Chicago Bulls.
Voices[link]
- Dora the Explorer: Kathleen Herles (2000-2004), Caitlin Sanchez (2007–2010), Fatima Ptacek (2012-Present)
- Boots: Regan Mizrahi (2007–2010)
- Backpack: Sasha Toro (2000-2004), Alexandria Suarez (2007–2010)
- Swiper: Marc Weiner (2007–2010)
- Map: Marc Weiner (2007–2010)
- Isa the Iguana: Ashley Fleming (2000-2004), Lenique Vincent (2007–2010)
- Tico the Squirrel: Jose Zelaya (2002-2004), Jean Carlos Celi (2007–2010)
- Benny The Bull: Matt Gumley (2007–2010)
- Big Red Chicken: Chris Gifford (2000-2004)
- Explorer Stars: Christiana Anbri, Henry Gifford, Katie Gifford, Aisha Shickler, Muhammed Cunningham, Jose Zeleya
- Jake Burbage
- Harrison Chad
- Andres Dieppa
- Felipe Dieppa
- Elaine Del Valle
- Eileen Galindo
- Chris Gifford
- K.J. Sanchez
- Adam Sietz
- Leslie Valdes
- Marc Weiner
Guests voices[link]
- John Leguizamo
- Cheech Marin
- Ricardo Montalbán
- Esai Morales
- Amy Principe
- Irwin Reese
- Chita Rivera (Dora's Fairytale Adventure, 2004)
- Antonia Rey
- Paul Rodriguez
Episode list[link]
Main article: List of Dora the Explorer episodes
Plot[link]
The episodes of Dora the Explorer almost always follow a regular pattern, breaking the fourth wall:
- Dora has something she wants to do or somewhere she needs to go.
- Dora has three, or, in some double-length episodes, four, places to go, with the final place as the destination.
- Dora and Boots meet Swiper somewhere along the way, sometimes succeed at saying 'Swiper no Swiping' three times; sometimes Swiper successfully swipes Dora's item and hides it. Dora and Boots always find the hidden item.
- Dora will meet one of her friends at each of the locations detailed by the Map.
- Dora always succeeds in passing the obstacles.
- In the English version, Dora will ask the viewers to help her by giving advice (jump, run etc.), locating items (especially those stolen by Swiper) and often shouting commands to the characters in Spanish (especially Tico and Sr. Tucan, who can only speak Spanish).
- Every character that appeared on the episode sings 'We did it' at the end except for Swiper (unless Swiper has taken some positive role in the episode, such as the episode where he rescues a lost baby fox).
- Dora asks viewers what their favorite part was. She (and usually Boots) then proceed to tell the viewer which part of the adventure she most enjoyed. Any other major character can also be included in this section.
- During the closing credits, viewers are either asked to find a character, hiding in a location, or follow instructions to achieve an objective.
Dora's Explorer Girls[link]
In 2009, Mattel and Nickelodeon introduced a preteen version of Dora, with four friends named Naiya, Kate, Emma, and Alana, who call themselves the Explorer Girls.[3] This is the "tween Dora" whose silhouette created some controversy when it debuted at the Nickelodeon website.[4][5]
Foreign adaptations[link]
As with many animated series made in the U.S., Dora the Explorer has been dubbed into many languages all over the world. The simplicity and repetitious nature of the episodes make this series especially well-suited for learning important phrases in a foreign language.
- Arabic In the Arabic language version broadcast on the "Nickelodeon on MBC3" block of MBC3, the bilingualism is Arabic-English.
- Cantonese The Cantonese version (Chinese: 愛探險的朵拉; Cantonese Yale: Oi taam hím dīk Dó Lā; literally "Explore-loving Dora") is sold in Hong Kong. The bilingualism is Cantonese-English.
- Danish In the Danish language version Dora is similarly to Swedish listed by Nickolodeon as Dora- utforskaren although this title is actually incorrect use of Danish. Translated it would be Udforskeren Dora (or, Udforskerinden Dora to emphasize the female gender). There are commands and expressions in English. It is broadcast on Nick Jr. in the subscription of Canal Digital and Viasat.
- Dutch. In the Dutch language version, broadcast on Nickelodeon and Nick .Jr, the bilingualism is Dutch-English. Starring Voice Actors: Lottie Hellingman as Dora and Dieter Jansen as Boots.
- French. In the French language version, Dora l'exploratrice, broadcast on TF1 in France and Télé-Québec in Canada, the bilingualism is French-English, with Dora and Boots (called Babouche) speaking French and other protagonists speaking and answering in English.
- Filipino In the Filipino language version broadcast on ABS-CBN entitled as its English title "Dora, the Explorer". The characters speak Filipino and some English, Dora teaches English in this version.
- German. In the German language version, broadcast on the recently restarted German branch of Nickelodeon, the bilingualism is German-English.
- Greek. In the Greek version called "Ντόρα η μικρή εξερευνήτρια" (or Dora the Little Explorer), broadcast on Nickelodeon and Star Channel, the bilingualism is Greek-English. Dora and Boots (called Botas) speak Greek and other protagonists speak and answer in English.
- Hebrew. In the Hebrew version, broadcast on HOP channel, the bilingualism is Hebrew-English. The series is called מגלים עם דורה (or Megalim Im Dora--English: Discovering with Dora).
- Hindi. In the Hindi language version, Dora and the other characters speak Hindi. It is broadcast on Nickelodeon. In this version, Dora teaches the viewers some English words and numbers.
- Indonesian. The Indonesian language version, formerly broadcast on Lativi, is now broadcast on Global TV.The bilingualism is Indonesian-English.
- Irish. In the Irish language version, broadcast on the Irish station TG4, the bilingualism is Irish-Spanish, with Dora and Boots speaking in Irish and some other characters speaking Spanish as in the original.
- Italian. In the Italian language version, broadcast on Italia 1 and on Nickelodeon in the subscription of Sky, the bilingualism is Italian-English. The series is called Dora l'esploratrice ("Dora the Explorer"). Most characters speak Italian, but some characters and especially Dora's parents and backpack speak English together with Italian.
- Japanese. In the Japanese language version, broadcast on Nick Japan, the bilingualism is Anglo-Japanese, with Dora and Boots speaking Japanese and other protagonists speaking and answering in English. The version is called ドーラといっしょに大冒険 (Dōra to issho ni dai bōken/Adventures with Dora).
- Korean. The Korean language version is broadcast on Nick Jr in Korea. The title is different it is called "Hi Dora" and is introduced by a real person whose name is Dami - she introduces key English vocabulary for each episode. The episode is primarily in Korean with some English.
- Malay. The Malay language version is broadcast on TV9. The bilingualism is Malay-English. Dora speaks primarily in Malay instead of English, and the secondary language is English instead of Spanish. The original English-Spanish version, however, is also available on Nickelodeon South East Asia via the Nick Jr. programming slot to subscribers of the ASTRO satellite TV service.
- Mandarin In the Mandarin Chinese version Dora the characters speak mainly Mandarin with limited English. It is broadcast on Yo-yo TV in Taiwan (Channel 25).
- Norwegian. In the Norwegian language version, the bilingualism is Norwegian-English.
- Polish. In the Polish language version, broadcast on Nickelodeon in Poland, the bilingualism is Polish-English. The series is called Dora poznaje świat ("Dora explores the world").
- Portuguese. In the Portuguese language versions, Dora a Exploradora, broadcast on RTP2 and Nickelodeon Portugal. At Nickelodeon Brazil, Dora and Boots (called Boots in the Portuguese version and called Botas in the Brazilian version) speak Portuguese and the other protagonists speak and answer in English. Some Portuguese episodes are available on DVD.
- Russian. In the Russian language version, broadcast on TNT and Nickelodeon, the bilingualism is Russian-English. The series is called Dasha-sledopyt ("Dasha the Pathfinder"). Dasha is the children's name of Daria (Darya).
- Serbian. In the Serbian language version, broadcast on B92, the bilingualism is Serbian-Spanish. The series is called Dora istražuje (Dora is exploring).
- Spanish. There are different Spanish language versions for Latin America and Spain. In Dora la Exploradora, broadcast on Nickelodeon in Latin America (and until September 2006 on Telemundo in the USA; since April 2008 on Univisión), Dora and Boots (called Botas) speak Spanish and the other protagonists speak and answer in English. Some Spanish episodes are available to US viewers on VHS, and some DVDs have a Spanish track (including Dora's Egg Hunt). This version is entirely the reverse of the original English version; Tico & Señor Tucan (called Mr. Toucan) only speak English. Additionally, Univision has added on-screen captions of the Spanish words spoken in English. In Spain, Dora la exploradora is aired on TVE 1, Clan TVE and Nickelodeon; the characters speak mainly Spanish but will have commands and expressions in English.
- Swedish In the Swedish language version Dora- utforskaren the characters speak mainly Swedish but will have commands and expressions in English. It is broadcast on Nickelodeon and TV4.
- Tamil In the Tamil language version Dora The Explorer, the characters all speak Tamil, with some English interspersed. It is broadcast on a local kids programming channel Chutti TV, a channel run by the Sun Network
- Turkish In the Turkish language version Dora the characters speak mainly Turkish, Spanish and English but will have commands and expressions in Turkish. It is broadcast on Nickelodeon and CNBC-e.
Stage adaptations[link]
Two stage versions of Dora the Explorer toured North America, the first being "City of Lost Toys", and the second being "Dora's Pirate Adventure." Produced by Nickelodeon and LiveNation, these productions featured live actors portraying the roles of Dora and her friends, including Boots, Diego, Isa, and the Fiesta Trio. Many of the characters wore elaborate foam costumes designed to resemble the Dora characters. Each production featured a structure similar to an episode of the television series.
City of Lost Toys featured Christina Bianco as Dora, while Dora's Pirate Adventure featured Danay Ferrer in the role, a former member of the all female American pop band innosense. Both productions featured a version of the popular Gloria Estefan song "Get On Your Feet" as the final number of the show.
Both productions were conceived by Chris Gifford, creator of the television show, and directed by Gip Hoppe.
There have been three Dora touring companies. The "City of Lost Toys" company and the "Pirate Adventure" company featured actors and crew that were members of Actor's Equity and IATSE, respectively, the unions for professional actors and stagehands in the United States. The third company performs a reduced version of "Pirate Adventure" and does not employ union personnel. This production is currently touring North America, and scheduled to travel to the United Kingdom and France.
Live-action movie[link]
It was revealed on February 18, 2008, that Nickelodeon would make a made-for-television movie based on the series, but as a live-action/CGI animated feature.[6] Dora, who would still be of Hispanic descent, would become a ten-year-old girl in this version with other characters computer animated. The movie is expected to be released in 2011.
Makeover[link]
File:Dora grows up.jpg
Dora the Explorer as a tween.
On March 8, 2009, Mattel and Nickelodeon announced that Dora will receive a tweenage makeover, switching from a young age to a teenage attending middle school. Initially, it was announced that the new look would not be revealed until late 2009,[7] but after a short controversy, the tween Dora was unveiled on March 16, 2009.[8] The new pre-teen Dora may be used for one of the future seasons.
Dora the Explorer merchandise[link]
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This section requires expansion. |
There are many action figures and playsets available in many markets, along with DVDs, cosmetics, hygiene products, ride-ons, books, board games, plush dolls, apparel, handbags, play tents, play kitchens and more. Licensees include Holland Publishing in the United Kingdom.
Toys[link]
In 2007, lead paint used by a contract toy manufacturer in China prompted Mattel to issue recalls for nearly a million toys, many of which featured Sesame Street and Nickelodeon characters, including Dora the Explorer. Nickelodeon responded that they would introduce "third-party monitoring" of all manufacturers of products under its brands.[9][10][11]
Books[link]
Dora the Explorer series[link]
- Dora's Backpack (ISBN 978-0689847202)
- Little Star (ISBN 978-0689847219)
- Happy Mother's Day Mami! (ISBN 978-0689852336)
- Meet Diego! (ISBN 978-0689859939)
- Dora's Thanksgiving (ISBN 978-0689858420)
- Dora Loves Boots (ISBN 978-0689863738)
- Dora's Book of Manners (ISBN 978-0689865336)
- Dora Goes to School (ISBN 978-0689864940)
- Dora's Fairy-Tale Adventure (ISBN 978-0689870125)
- Dora's Chilly Day (ISBN 978-0689867958)
- Show Me Your Smile! (ISBN 978-0689871696)
- Dora's Pirate Adventure (ISBN 978-0689875830)
- Big Sister Dora! (ISBN 978-0689878466)
- At the Carnival (ISBN 978-0689858413)
- Dora's Costume Party! (ISBN 978-1416900108)
- Dance to the Rescue (ISBN 978-1416902164)
- Dora's Starry Christmas (ISBN 978-1416902492)
- Super babies (ISBN 978-1416914853)
- The Birthday Dance Party (ISBN 978-1416913030)
- Dora's World Adventure (ISBN 978-1416924470)
- Dora Climbs Star Mountain (ISBN 978-1416940593)
- It's Sharing Day! (ISBN 978-1416915751)
- Dora Had a Little Lamb (ISBN 978-1416933687)
- Dora Saves Mermaid Kingdom! (ISBN 978-1416938415)
- Dora and the Stuck Truck (ISBN 978-1416947998)
Ready To Read series – Level 1[link]
- Dora's Picnic (ISBN 978-0689852381)
- Follow Those Feet! (ISBN 978-0689852398)
- Dora in the Deep Sea (ISBN 978-0689858451)
- I Love My Papi! (ISBN 978-0689864957)
- Say "Cheese!" (ISBN 978-0689864964)
- The Halloween Cat (ISBN 978-0689867996)
- Eggs for Everyone! (ISBN 978-0689871764)
- Just Like Dora! (ISBN 978-0689876752)
- I Love My Mami! (ISBN 978-1416906506)
- Puppy Takes a Bath (ISBN 978-1416914839)
- Around the World! (ISBN 978-1416924784)
- Dora's Sleepover (ISBN 978-1416915089)
- Dora Helps Diego! (ISBN 978-1416915096)
- Dora's Perfect Pumpkin (ISBN 978-1416934387)
- Dora's Mystery of the Missing Shoes (ISBN 978-1416938248)
A Lift-the-Flap Story[link]
- Good Night, Dora!: A Lift-the-Flap Story (ISBN 978-0689847745)
- Where Is Boots?: A Lift-the-Flap Story (ISBN 978-0689847752)
- Let's Play Sports!: A Lift-the-Flap Story (ISBN 978-1416933502)
- All Dressed Up!: A Lift-the-Flap Book (ISBN 978-0689877186)
Treasury books and collection books[link]
- Dora's Ready-to-Read Adventures (ISBN 978-0689878152)
Contains: Dora's picnic, Follow those feet, Dora in the deep sea, I love my Papi!, Say "Cheese"
- Dora's Storytime Collection (ISBN 978-0689866234)
Contains: Dora's Backpack, Little Star, Happy Birthday, Mami!, Meet Diego!, Dora Saves the Prince, Dora's Treasure Hunt, Good Night, Dora!
- Dora's Big Book of Stories (ISBN 978-1416907084)
Contains: Dora's Book of Manners, Dora Goes to School, Dora's Fairy-Tale Adventure, Dora's Chilly Day, Show Me Your Smile!, Dora's Pirate Adventure, Big Sister Dora!
Sticker books[link]
- Dora's Magic Watering Can (ISBN 978-1416947721)
DVDs and videos[link]
Main article: List of Dora the Explorer videos
Video games[link]
Main article: Dora the Explorer (video game series)
Video games based on the 2000 television show Dora the Explorer were released. In Canada, Cheerios offered free Dora the Explorer the Game CD-ROMs in specially marked packages. However, packages sold in Quebec would only have the French version. Dora the Explorer: Barnyard Buddies is a video game released for the PlayStation in 2003 in the US. It was not released in Europe until 2005 being one of the very last games released on that platform in that territory. Dora the Explorer: Super Star Adventures is an adventure video game for the Gameboy Advance released in 2004. It was developed by Imaginengine and published by Global Star.[12]
Dora the Explorer: Journey to the Purple Planet is an action-adventure video game, developed by Monkey Bar Games, published by Global Star Software and powered by Vicious Engine. The game was released for Gamecube in North America on October 13, 2005,[13] and later in PAL regions on December 16, 2005. The Playstation 2 version was released on PAL regions on December 2, 2005, and later in North America in February 9, 2006.[14] The game is about Dora and Boots who finds some lost aliens from the purple planet. However, to take them home, she and Boots are required to collect keys to open the space gate, leading to the saturn planet. The game is unique in that it uses pictures and symbols to communicate rather than words. The object of the game is to capture one of the six explorer stars. Each explorer star has a special power such as the ability to be noisy or the ability to create music. In order to capture the star, the player must complete a hide-and-seek activity. These activities include maze navigation, matching games, side-scrolling race games, a "Frogger"-type game, a complete-the-pattern activity and a song playing game.[15]
Dora Puppy is a puppy simulator were players must help Dora take care of her puppy, Perrito, and help train him for doggie competitions. All the actions are performed by either tracing certain shapes with the stylus or calling out commands into the DS's microphone.[16] It was developed by Take-Two Interactive for the Nintendo DS and published by 2K Play in North America[17] and Australia in 2009, and in Europe in 2010.
Dora the Explorer: Dora's Cooking Club is a cooking video game for the Nintendo DS. It was published by 2K Play in 2010.[18] In the game, players have to chop veggies, stir soups, top pizzas, and more using math skills. They may be sorting cookies into numbered groups or counting out different amounts of ingredients.[19]
- Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Snow Princess is a video game that was released for the PlayStation 2 and the Wii console in 2008.
- Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom is a video game that was released for the PlayStation 2 and the Wii console in 2009.
References in other media and parodies[link]
Hip hop artist Ludacris made a few references to Dora in his song "Number One Spot", rapping "Explora like Dora, those swipers can't swipe me".
In an episode of Drake & Josh titled "The Storm", character Crazy Steve is seen watching Dora. He repeatedly yells at her as to why she is asking him questions.
The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy makes reference to Dora in episode "Pandora's Lunchbox", where a character bearing a suspicious resemblance and the same name as Dora tries to convince people to open her lunchbox, but her personality is nearly the exact opposite of Dora's, being evil and wanting to plunge the world into never-ending suffering. Billy also describes Grim's favorite show, which is nearly a summary of Dora.
On the series Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, imaginary friend Eduardo watches a show named "Lauren is Explorin'".
On Saturday Night Live's TV Funhouse sketch entitled "Maraka", created by Robert Smigel, the Dora-like character is called Maraka, while the Boots-like character is called Mittens. The storyline resembles an episode from Season 2 of Go, Diego, Go!, "Macky the Macaroni Penguin". The sketch made fun of the pauses in the show for the child viewer to react, the translations from Spanish to English (and Chinese, German, Portuguese, Hebrew, Swahili, Xhosa, Korean and Russian) in Maraka's sentences and had many sporadic events. Maraka was voiced by Becca Lish, who imitated Kathleen Herles' voice for Dora.
Saturday Night Live also featured a Dora reference in their MTV 4 sketch. A rapper (played by Zach Braff) talks about his Dora the Explorer tattoo. He mentioned he likes calling her "Explora". When asked why he got the tattoo, he said he had a lot in common with Dora as they both, "grew up on the streets". Another character mentions he grew up in the suburbs. "Yeah, but they had streets", the rapper replies.
On an episode of The Daily Show, during the CNBC controversy, Jon Stewart makes a mock appearance on Dora the Explorer, in response to Mad Money's Jim Cramer's appearances on The Today Show and Morning Joe. In the appearance, Dora casually calls both Cramer and Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough pendejos, and Boots offers to throw feces on both.[20]
Comedian Brian Regan once poked fun at Dora the Explorer in his stand-up, repetitively singing "I'm the Map!"
Many fan-made parodies exist on YouTube that include Dora dancing the Soulja Boy,[21] in a music video for "Leam like a Cholo",[22] and asking Brad Pitt on a date.[23] These parodies have been very popular, generating over several million views each.[citation needed]
On Bubble Gang, the parody of the show was Chickadora The Exploiter, portrayed by Michael V. and Diego.
On Goin' Bulilit if the casts are on Location, The combined parody of the show and Nora Aunor was Nora The Explorer, portrayed by Chacha Canete.
On Eat Bulaga, the opening number for November 28, 2009 Allan K. as Dora the Rat Killer while he holds the Stuffed Monkey along with Wally Bayola as Spider-Man.
A parody of Dora called 'Doray Alaskadora' is seen on Wow Mali. Doray also makes frequent appearances alongside host Joey de Leon and the monkey puppet Enchong Go.
On Fred: The Movie, when Fred is riding in the car with his dad, his dad turns on a TV in the car. Dora is on the TV.
At the beginning of a Law & Order: Los Angeles episode, the kids watch Dora the Explorer in the car.
On an episode of Cartoon Network's MAD series, the segment "Dora the Explorer in the Road to Recovery" features Dora throwing up on backpack. After, backpack's gurgling voice was saying "I'm the backpack!" and scared Boots. On another episode of MAD called "Are You Karate Kidding Me?", Dre's backpack winds up to be Dora's.
References[link]
- ^ Shipkowski, Bruce (2008-11-28). "Caitlin Sanchez Dora the Explorer's new voice". The San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/27/DD3O14DIP6.DTL.
- ^ Amanda Staab. "Local girl is voice of cartoon" The Union City Reporter. September 14, 2008
- ^ "Dora's Explorer Girls". Nickjr.com. http://www.nickjr.com/doragirls/home.jhtml. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
- ^ "New Tween "Dora The Explorer" Revealed". Popcrunch.com. http://www.popcrunch.com/new-tween-dora-the-explorer-revealed/. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
- ^ Vicki Passmore (2011-02-01). "Boy, How You've Changed: Nine Big Mascot Makeovers". Walletpop.com. http://www.walletpop.com/2011/01/25/boy-how-youve-changed-9-big-mascot-makeovers/. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
- ^ Starr, Michael (2008-02-18). "Search for Real Dora (Feb. 18, 2008)". New York Post. http://www.nypost.com/seven/02182008/tv/search_for_real_dora_98189.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-17.
- ^ "Dora the Explorer Updates Her Look". http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Weekend/story?id=7033295&page=1. Retrieved 2009-03-08.
- ^ "After Dora uproar, Nick and Mattel soothe moms". http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705291219/After-Dora-uproar-Nick-and-Mattel-soothe-moms.html. Retrieved 2010-09-06.
- ^ Addley, Esther (2007-08-03). "Mattel recalls nearly 100,000 toys after lead paint alert". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/aug/03/estheraddley.uknews4. Retrieved 2008-07-06.
- ^ Gregory, Angela (2007-08-03). "Dora the Explorer leads toy giant's recall". The New Zealand Herald. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10455568. Retrieved 2008-07-06.
- ^ Story, Louise (2007-08-02). "Lead Paint Prompts Mattel to Recall 967,000 Toys (registration required to read article)". NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/02/business/02toy.html.
- ^ "Dora the Explorer: Super Star Adventures". IGN. http://gameboy.ign.com/objects/708/708236.html. Retrieved 2011-09-09.
- ^ http://cube.ign.com/objects/480/480899.html
- ^ http://ps2.ign.com/objects/776/776722.html
- ^ Global Star (2004) Dora the Explorer: Super Star Adventures Manual
- ^ 2K Play (2009) Dora the Explorer: Dora Puppy Manual
- ^ Dora the Explorer: Dora Puppy - DS - IGN
- ^ Dora's Cooking Club - DS - IGN
- ^ 2K Play (2010) Dora's Cooking Club Manual
- ^ "Cramer vs Not Cramer: Basic Cable Personality Clash Skirmish '09". The Daily Show. March 10, 2009. Comedy Central.
- ^ "Dora the Explorer ( Crank Dat Soulja Boy)". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgMgLjMghuk. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
- ^ "Dora the ExploraChola". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEZEosWNWso. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
- ^ "Dora The Explorer: Find a Date". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDee4_mo4B4. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
External links[link]
- Dora The Explorer on Nick Jr. Australia
- Dora The Explorer On Nick Jr. US
- Dora The Explorer On Nick Jr. UK
- Dora The Explorer on Treehouse
- Dora The Explorer On Nick Canada
- Unofficial British fansite.
- Article on the value of Dora the Explorer as a Spanish learning tool
- Dora the Explorer at the Internet Movie Database
http://wn.com/Dora_the_Explorer
Related pages:
http://it.wn.com/Dora l'esploratrice
http://cs.wn.com/Dora, průzkumník
http://id.wn.com/Dora the Explorer
http://es.wn.com/Dora, la exploradora
http://ru.wn.com/Даша-следопыт
http://nl.wn.com/Dora the Explorer
http://pt.wn.com/Dora the Explorer
http://pl.wn.com/Dora poznaje świat
http://fr.wn.com/Dora l'exploratrice
http://de.wn.com/Dora (Zeichentrickserie)
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_the_Explorer
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
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