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, Yucatan Peninsula

1515 Juan de Solis; Spanish; Rio 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 African-American 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