Explorers

 

 

Americas

 

 982-86  Eric the Red;  Norse;  Greenland

 1000  Leif Ericson;  Norse;  Newfoundland

 1492  Christopher Columbus; Italian (Spanish); West Indies

 1497  John Cabot; Italian (English);  Newfoundland or Nova Scotia

 1498  John and Sebastian Cabot;  Italian (English);  Labrador to Hatteras  

 1499  Alonso de Ojeda;  Spanish;  N South American coast, Venezuela

 1500  Vicente Yanez Pinzon;  Spanish;  South American coast, Amazon R.

 1500  Pedro Alvarez Cabral;  Portuguese;  Brazil

 1500-02  Gaspar Corte-Real;  Portuguese;  Labrador

 1501  Rodrigo de Bastidas;  Spanish;  Central America  

 1513  Vasco Nunez de Balboa;  Spanish;  Panama, Pacific Ocean  

 1513  Juan Ponce de Leon;  Spanish;  Florida, Yucatán Peninsula

 1515  Juan de Solis;  Spanish;  Río de la Plata  

 1519  Alonso de Pineda;  Spanish;  Mouth of Mississippi R.

 1519  Hernando Cortes;  Spanish;  Mexico

 1519-20  Ferdinand Magellan;  Portuguese (Spanish);  Straits of Magellan, Tierra del Fuego  

 1524  Giovanni da Verrazano;  Italian (French),  Atlantic coast including New York harbor  

 1528 Cabeza de Vaca;  Spanish;  Texas coast and interior  

 1532  Francisco Pizarro;  Spanish;  Peru  

 1534  Jacques Cartier;  French;  Canada, Gulf of St. Lawrence  

 1536  Pedro de Mendoza;  Spanish;  Buenos Aires  

 1539  Francisco de Ulloa;  Spanish;  California coast  

 1539-41  Hernando de Soto;  Spanish;  Mississippi R. near Memphis  

 1539  Marcos de Niza;  Italian (Spanish);  SW United States

 1540  Francisco de Coronado;  Spanish;  SW United States in search of Cities of Gold and Cibola

 1540  Hernando Alarcon;  Spanish;  Colorado R.

 1540  Garcia de L. Cardenas;  Spanish;  Colorado, Grand Canyon

 1541  Francisco de Orellana;  Spanish;  Amazon R.

 1542  Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo;  Portuguese (Spanish);  W Mexico, San Diego harbor  

 1565  Pedro Menendez de Aviles;  Spanish;  St. Augustine FL

 1576  Sir Martin Frobisher;  English;  Frobisher's Bay Canada  

 1577-80  Sir Francis Drake;  English;   California coast

 1582  Antonio de Espejo;  Spanish;  SW U.S. (New Mexico)  

 1584  Amadas & Barlow (for Raleigh);  English;   Virginia  

 1585-87  Sir Walter Raleigh's men;  English;  Roanoke Island NC

 1595  Sir Walter Raleigh;  English;  Orinoco R.

 1603-09  Samuel de Champlain;  French;  Canadian interior, Lake Champlain  

 1607  Capt. John Smith;  English;  Atlantic coast  

 1609-10  Henry Hudson;  English (Dutch);  Hudson R., Hudson Bay  

 1634  Jean Nicolet;  French;  Lake Michigan, Wisconsin  

 1673  Jacques Marquette Louis Jolliet;  French;   Mississippi R. south to Arkansas  

 1682  Robert Cavelier sieur de La Salle;  French;  Mississippi R. south to Gulf of Mexico  

 1725-41 Vitus Bering;  Denmark;  Bering Sea

 1789  Sir Alexander Mackenzie;  Canadian;  NW Canada

 1804-06  Meriwether Lewis and William Clark;  American;  Missouri R., Rockies, Columbia R.

 1911  Hiram Bingham;  US;  Machu Picchu

 

 

Africa

 

 600 BC  Pharaoh Necho;  Egypt;  possibly circumnavigated Africa

 1488  Bartolomeu Dias;  Portugal;  reached Cape of Good Hope

 1497-98  Vasco da Gama;  Portugal;  sailed around Cape of Good Hope to India

 1770-71  James Bruce;  Scotland;  source of Blue Nile

 1849-73  David Livingston;  Scotland;  Zambezi R., Victoria Falls, Lake Nyasa, South Africa

 1850-55 Heinrich Barth;  Germany;  Timbuktu

 1853-58 Richard Francis Burton;  England;  Mecca, Somalia, Ethiopia, Lake Tanganyika

 1857-62  John Hanning Speke;  England;  Lake Victoria (source of Nile)

 1874-89  Henry Morton Stanley;  Wales;  Congo R., Lake Edward, Lake Tanganyika

 

 

Asia

 

1271-95  Marco Polo;  Venice;  India, China, Central Asia, Malay

 

 

Oceania

 

1768-79  James Cook;  England;  New Zealand, Hawaii

 

 

Around the World

 

1519-1521  Ferdinand Magellan;  Portugal;  Magellan was killed in Philippines, some crew made it back

1577-1580  Francis Drake;  England;  sailed in Golden Hind

 

 

Arctic and Antarctic

 

 1821  John Davis;  US;  landed on Antarctica

 1831-43  James Clark Ross;  England;  Ross Ice Shelf, Ross Sea, Victoria Land

 1901-16  Ernest Henry Shakleton;  Ireland;  almost to South Pole

 1909  Robert Peary and Matthew Henson;  US;  North Pole

 1911  Roald Amundsen;  Norway;  South Pole

 1926  Richard Byrd;  US;  fly-over North Pole

 1929  Richard Byrd;  US;  fly-over South Pole

 

 

Space

 

 First animal in space - Laika (dog, 1957)

 First satellite - Sputnik I (1957)

 First American satellite - Explorer I (1958)

 First man in space - Yuri Gagarin (1961, Vostok I)

 First American in space - Alan Shepard (1961)

 First American in orbit - John Glenn (1962)

 First spacewalk - Alexi Leonov

 First American spacewalk - Ed White

 First woman in space - Valentina Tereshkova (1963)

 First American woman in space - Sally Ride

 First black in space - Guion Bluford

 First men on moon - Neil Armstrong, Edwin Buzz Aldrin (1969, Apollo 11), Michael Collins in command module

 American manned space programs - Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Space Shuttle

 Russian manned space programs - Vostok, Voskhod, Soyuz, Salyut

 Died in Apollo flash fire in 1967 - Grissom, Chaffee, and White

 First space shuttles - Enterprise (trainer), Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis