James Cook

Captain James Cook, 1728-1779, was an explorer and navigator and captain in the Royal Navy, whose skills in mapping and discoveries of faraway lands changed geography in the 18th Century. He is the first known European to have landed in the Hawaiian Islands and on the east coast of Australia, and the first to circumnavigate (sail right around) New Zealand.

Cook was an excellent surveyor and cartographer (someone who draws maps) and it was these skills which won him a place on his first exploratory voyage, in 1769, in search of a great southern continent known as Terra Australis on the ship the Endeavour. Cook first sailed right around New Zealand, to prove that it wasn't part of a bigger continent, and then sailed right along the east coast of Australia, naming it New South Wales and claiming it as British territory. He recorded the first European siting of Australia's Aboriginal people and discovered kangaroos! He returned home in 1771.

Still not convinced that "New South Wales" was the southern continent, Cook set off again in 1772. This time he was unable to reach Australia, so he visited New Zealand, the Antarctic and Tahiti and then returned home.

In 1776 Cook set out on his third voyage, hoping to discover a Northwest Passage around the American contintent. In doing so he discovered the Hawaiian islands. Cook then explored and mapped the north-west coastline of America and tried several times to continue on through the Bering Strait, but failed. Eventually he returned to Hawaii and was treated with much respect by the Hawaiians at first, but unfortunately a number of quarrels broke out and Cook was killed.

Fun Fact: When Cook's sailors encountered Maori warriors in New Zealand they were so impressed with their facial tattoos that some of them got their own tattoos on their arms, starting a craze which has never ended!

"Ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go."
Captain James Cook