dvwX©b¨v›U g¨vwMjvbRb¥ gvP© 1480 mve‡ivQv, cy‡Z©vMvj -g„Z¨y 27 GwcÖj 1521, wm‡ev, wdwjcvBb

Magellan left Spain in 1519 with five ships. It took more than fourteen months to find the southern opening to the Pacific Ocean. He found it in the frigid, stormy waters now known as the Strait of Magellan. What Magellan did not count on was the immensity of the Pacific, a body of water larger than all of the land on earth. Magellan expected Asia to be a few hundred miles past beyond the coast of South America. Instead, the expedition traveled 12,600 miles before reaching land.

Christopher Columbus

Italy 1492-1504 ad

Explored America and established colonies during four voyages across the Atlantic.

John Cabot

Italy 1497-1498 ad

Made two voyages under English flag. Explored Cape Breton Island and Nova Scotia; also sailed along E and W coasts of Greenland, E coast of Labrador, W coast of Baffin Island, and a portion of S coast of Newfoundland.

Vasco da Gama

Portugal

1497-1498 ad

Sailed around Cape of Good Hope to Malindi on E coast of Africa, and then across Indian Ocean to Calicut, India.

Amerigo Vespucci

Italy 1497-1502 ad

Sailed through Caribbean along coast of South America. The German geographer Martin Waldseemüller published his accounts and suggested that New World be named America.

Sebastian Cabot

Italy 1508-1509 ad

Voyaged to Labrador while searching for the Northwest Passage, and possibly sailed as far as the Hudson Bay.

Ferdinand Magellan

Portugal 1519-1521 ad

Explored estuary of Río de la Plata, sailed S, proceeding through strait which bears his name, and traversed Pacific Ocean to Philippine Islands, where he was killed. He was first person to sail W around the globe to a longitude previously reached on an E voyage.

Juan Sebastián del Cano

Spain 1519-1522 ad

A commander in Magellan's expedition. After Magellan's death, del Cano, in command of Victoria, the expedition's sole surviving ship, returned to Spain by way of Moluccas and Cape of Good Hope, thus being first to circumnavigate the globe.

Juan Sebastián del Cano Rb¥ gvP© 1486 †¯úb- g„Z¨y 4 AvM÷ 1526 cÖkvš— gnvmvMi Juan Sebastián de Elcano was a

Spanish Basque explorer who completed the first circumnavigation of the world. In 1525, Elcano goes back to sea, and becomes a member of the Loaísa Expedition. He was appointed leader along with García Jofre de Loaísa as captains, who commanded seven ships, and sent to claim the East Indies for king Charles I of Spain. Both Elcano, and Loaísa, and many other sailors died of malnutrition in the Pacific Ocean, but the survivors reached their destination, and a few of them managed to return to Spain, completing the second world circumnavigation in history.

(1603–59), Dutch navigator, born in Lutjegast, near Groningen. About 1632 he entered the service of the Dutch East India Co. He sailed on several expeditions and was chosen (1642) by Anton Van Diemen (1593–1645), the governor-general of the company, to lead an important voyage of exploration in the southern hemisphere.

Tasman was to travel through the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean and investigate the possibility of a sea passage to Chile. He left Batavia (now Jakarta), on the island of Java, and sailed to Mauritius. After exploring southeastward, he turned north, and on Nov. 24, 1642, he visited an island, which he named Van Diemen's Land, now called Tasmania. Tasman continued east and sighted South Island, now part of New Zealand. He passed through the strait between South Island and North Island and, turning northeast, he sighted Tonga and the Fiji Islands. During the voyage he had circumnavigated Australia without sighting it.On his second voyage (1644) Tasman sailed into Torres Strait, reached the Gulf of Carpentaria, and followed the coast of Australia (then called New Holland) to about lat 22° S.

Abel Janszoon Tasman

Abel Janszoon Tasman, discoverer of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), New Zealand, the Tonga and Fiji Islands, and the first to circumnavigate Australia.Tasman was born at Lutjegast, Groningen in 1603. From an early age ships and sailing had been his interest and career, although not a very successful one.

The Abel Tasman map 1644, also known as the Bonaparte Tasman map. This map is part of the collection of the State Library of New South Wales, Australia.

Abel Janszoon Tasman

The Netherlands

1642-1644 ad

Explored New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji, Gulf of Carpentaria, and Tasmania.

Vitus Jonassen Bering

Denmark 1725-1741 ad

Explored Bering Sea and Bering Strait.

Samuel Hearne

England 1770-1772 ad

Traced Coppermine R. northward from its basin to Arctic shores of Canada.

Captain James Cook

England 1768-1779 ad

Explored and charted coast of New Zealand, finished charting of world's major bodies of water, and disproved long-standing theory that there was a large, unexplored, habitable land in southern hemisphere; explored coasts of Antarctica and Hawaii.

(1680–1741), Danish navigator, born in Horsens, Denmark. He entered the newly formed navy of the Russian czar Peter the Great and in 1724 was appointed to conduct an expedition to explore the water routes between Siberia and North America.

The first Kamchatka Expedition, (1725-1730)The Russian Zar, Peter the Great (1672-1725), sent out an expedition lead by Vitus Beringto find out whether Asia and North America were connected. The planning of the Kamchatka Expedition took almost four years, and on February 5, 1725,five weeks before his death, Peter the Great signed Bering's orders, and the explorer finallyset sail. It took the expedition until 1728 to reach the Siberian peninsula of Kamchatka.The expedition travelled throughSiberia and reached Kamchatka, where a camp wass set upand ships were built. On the 13th of August 1728, Bering sailed round the north-east cornerof Asia, thus proving that there was water between Asia and America. The American coastwas hidden in fog, though. Bering returned to Sct. Petersburg with the news but wascriticised for not having actually seen the American coast.

Vitus Jonassen Bering

Samuel Hearne

Discovery of the Coppermine River, 13th July 1771

English explorer, born in London. In 1756 he entered the navy, and was some time with Lord Hood; at the end of the Seven Years' War (1763) he took service with the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1768 he examined portions of the Hudson's Bay coasts with a view to improving the cod fishery, and in 1769-72 he was employed in northwestern discovery, searching especially for certain copper mines described by Indians. His first attempt (from the 6th of November 1769) failed through the desertion of his Indians; his second (from the 23rd of February 1770) through the breaking of his quadrant; but in his third (December 1770 to June 1772) he was successful, not only discovering the copper of the Coppermine river basin, but tracing this river to the Arctic Ocean. He reappeared at Fort Prince of Wales on the 30th of June 1772. Becoming governor of this fort in 1775 he was taken prisoner by the French under La Pérouse in 1782. He returned to England in 1787 and died there in 1792.

Map of Tahiti drawn by Captain Cook.

The routes of Captain James Cook's voyages. The first voyage is shown in red, second voyage in green, and third voyage in blue. The route of Cook's crew following his death is shown as a dashed blue line.

James Cook was born in Marton, Yorkshire, in 1728, the son of an agricultural labourer. Apprenticed to a Whitby shipowner, he joined the Navy in 1755, becoming master in 1757. Cook led three expeditions to the Pacific Ocean, the first from 1768 to 1771, as Lieutenant in the Endeavour; the second, from 1772 to 1775, as Commander in the Resolution,accompanied by the Adventure; and the last, from 1776 until his death in 1779 as Captain in the Resolution accompanied by the Discovery.

1 Exploration by land2 Portugal takes the lead

2.1 The beginnings 1419–14983 The Discovery of the New World4 Decline of the Portuguese monopoly5 Northern European involvement6 End of the Age of Exploration7 Global impact of the Age of Discovery8 Economic and cultural impacts of the Age of Exploration on European powers

European expeditions crossing Eurasia by land in the late Middle Ages.While the Mongols had threatened Europe with pillage and destruction, the Mongol states also unified much of Eurasia creating trade routes and communication lines stretching from the Middle East to China.These were almost all Italians as the trade between Europe and the Middle East was almost completely controlled by traders from the Italian city-states. Christian leaders, such as Prince Henry the Navigator, also launched expeditions in hopes of finding converts, or the fabled Prester John.The first of these travellers was Giovanni de Plano Carpini who journeyed to Mongolia and back from 1241–1247.The famous traveller was Marco Polo who wrote of journeys throughout Asia from 1271 to 1295 in which he described being a guest at the Yuan Dynastycourt of Kublai Khan. His journey was written up as Travels and the work was read throughout Europe. In 1439, Niccolò Da Conti published an account of his travels to India and Southeast Asia. In 1466-1472, a Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin of Tver travelled to India, which he described in his book A Journey Beyond the Three Seas.The Black Death of the fourteenth century also blocked travel and trade. The land route to the East was controlled by Mediterranean commercial interests and Islamic empires that both controlled the flow and price of goods. The rise of the aggressive and expansionist Ottoman Empire further limited the possibilities of European overland trade.