Ten explorers, from Leif Erikson to Captain Cook: who they were, what they did, and how each one changed the world.
Each one has a map tour at getridoftheteacher.com/explorers
The Viking who reached North America about 500 years before Columbus.
| Born | About 970, in Iceland |
|---|---|
| Died | About 1020, in Greenland |
| Sailed for | Himself and his family, the Norse settlers of Greenland |
| Ship | A Norse trading ship called a knarr, with about 35 men |
| Famous voyage | About the year 1000, from Greenland to Vinland, in North America |
Leif proved that ships from Europe could reach America, and the camp in Newfoundland is the oldest European building site ever found in the Americas. But the Norse did not stay. They fought with the people already living there, whom they called Skraelings, and after a few years they went home. Because Vinland was forgotten by most of Europe, it changed very little at the time. It is a reminder that "discovering" a place is different from changing it.
The Chinese admiral who led the biggest fleets the world had ever seen.
| Born | 1371, in Yunnan, China, as Ma He, in a Muslim family |
|---|---|
| Died | 1433, probably at sea on his last voyage |
| Sailed for | The Ming emperors of China, above all the Yongle Emperor |
| Ships | Up to about 250 ships and 27,000 men; the biggest "treasure ships" were far longer than Columbus's |
| Famous voyages | Seven voyages, 1405 to 1433, across the Indian Ocean |
Zheng He showed that China could reach any port in the Indian Ocean, almost a hundred years before the Portuguese got there. His voyages spread trade and Chinese communities across Southeast Asia, where he is still honoured in temples today. Then the emperors stopped the voyages, the great ships were left to rot, and China turned inward. That choice left the oceans open, and within a century it was European ships, not Chinese ones, that built empires across the seas.
The sailor whose voyages joined Europe and the Americas for good.
| Born | 1451, in Genoa, Italy |
|---|---|
| Died | May 20, 1506, in Valladolid, Spain |
| Sailed for | Spain: Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand |
| Ships | The Niña, the Pinta and the Santa María on his first voyage |
| Famous voyages | Four voyages across the Atlantic, 1492 to 1504 |
Columbus's voyages started lasting contact between Europe and the Americas. Plants and animals crossed the ocean both ways: horses, cattle and wheat went west, and corn, potatoes, tomatoes and chocolate went east. Historians call this the Columbian Exchange, and it changed what people eat all over the world. But it also brought smallpox and other diseases, conquest and slavery. Within fifty years, most of the Taíno people of the Caribbean were dead.
The first person to sail from Europe to India.
| Born | About 1469, in Sines, Portugal |
|---|---|
| Died | December 24, 1524, in Kochi, India |
| Sailed for | Portugal: King Manuel I |
| Ships | The São Gabriel, the São Rafael, the Berrio and a supply ship |
| Famous voyage | Lisbon around Africa to Calicut, India, and home, 1497 to 1499 |
Da Gama opened a sea road from Europe to Asia. Spices that once came overland through Arabia and Venice now came by ship around Africa, and Portugal built a trading empire with ports in Africa, India, Malaysia and China. It was the start of more than 450 years of European ships, soldiers and colonies in Asia, and the Indian Ocean trade that people there had run peacefully for centuries became a place of forts and cannons.
The Italian sailor who gave England its claim to North America.
| Born | About 1450, in Italy (his name was Giovanni Caboto) |
|---|---|
| Died | About 1498, probably lost at sea |
| Sailed for | England: King Henry VII |
| Ship | The Matthew, a small ship with about 20 men |
| Famous voyage | Bristol to Newfoundland and back, 1497 |
Cabot's voyage gave England its claim to North America, the claim that led, a hundred years later, to English colonies there. The fishing grounds he found, the Grand Banks, fed Europe for centuries and brought fishing boats from many countries across the Atlantic every summer. Those colonies, like the Spanish ones to the south, were built on land that Indigenous peoples already lived on.
The explorer America is named after.
| Born | March 9, 1454, in Florence, Italy |
|---|---|
| Died | February 22, 1512, in Seville, Spain |
| Sailed for | Spain, then Portugal |
| Ships | Small fleets of two to four ships |
| Famous voyages | Along the coast of South America, 1499 to 1502 |
Vespucci helped Europe understand that two whole continents stood between Europe and Asia. In 1507 the German mapmaker Martin Waldseemüller read his letters and wrote the name America on a new map of the world, and the name stuck. The idea of a "New World" was new only to Europeans, though: millions of people had lived there for thousands of years.
The Portuguese captain who claimed Brazil on his way to India.
| Born | About 1467, in Belmonte, Portugal |
|---|---|
| Died | About 1520, in Santarém, Portugal |
| Sailed for | Portugal: King Manuel I |
| Ships | 13 ships and about 1,500 men |
| Famous voyage | Lisbon to Brazil, then around Africa to India and home, 1500 to 1501 |
Because of Cabral, Brazil became Portuguese, and today it is the biggest Portuguese-speaking country in the world, with more than 200 million people. Its name comes from brazilwood, a tree that gave a red dye. But Portugal soon cleared the coast for sugar plantations and brought millions of enslaved Africans to work them, more than any other country in the Americas, and the Indigenous peoples of the coast lost their land and many of their lives.
The leader of the first voyage around the world.
| Born | About 1480, in Portugal |
|---|---|
| Died | April 27, 1521, on Mactan, in the Philippines |
| Sailed for | Spain: King Charles I |
| Ships | Five ships and about 270 men: only the Victoria came home |
| Famous voyage | Around the world, 1519 to 1522 |
The voyage proved that all the oceans are joined and that the Earth is far bigger than Columbus had thought. The sailors came home a day behind the calendar, the first clue that led to the International Date Line. Spain later came back and made the Philippines a colony for more than 300 years, and the Manila galleons that sailed between Asia and Mexico were among the first trade routes to tie the whole world together.
The English sea captain who raided Spain's treasure and sailed around the world.
| Born | About 1540, near Tavistock, England |
|---|---|
| Died | January 28, 1596, at sea off Panama, of illness |
| Sailed for | England: Queen Elizabeth I |
| Ship | The Golden Hind |
| Famous voyage | Around the world, 1577 to 1580 |
Drake showed that England could challenge Spain, the most powerful empire of the day, and his raids helped turn England into a great sea power. That power later grew into the British Empire. To the English he was a hero; to the Spanish he was a pirate; and to the people he helped enslave he was neither. All three are true.
The navigator who mapped the Pacific more accurately than anyone before him.
| Born | October 27, 1728, in Marton, Yorkshire, England |
|---|---|
| Died | February 14, 1779, at Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii |
| Sailed for | Britain: the Royal Navy |
| Ships | The Endeavour, the Resolution, the Adventure and the Discovery |
| Famous voyages | Three voyages across the Pacific, 1768 to 1779 |
Cook's maps were so good that sailors used some of them for nearly 200 years, and the scientists and artists on his ships brought back thousands of plants, animals and drawings no European had seen. But his voyages also opened the Pacific to colonisation. In 1770 he claimed eastern Australia for Britain, and in 1788 a British colony began there, on land the Aboriginal peoples had lived on for more than 60,000 years. For them, and for the Māori and the peoples of Hawaii, what followed brought disease, war and the loss of their land.
| Name | Lived | Who they were |
|---|---|---|
| Leif Erikson | about 970 – about 1020 | The Viking who reached North America about 500 years before Columbus. |
| Zheng He | 1371 – 1433 | The Chinese admiral who led the biggest fleets the world had ever seen. |
| Christopher Columbus | 1451 – 1506 | The sailor whose voyages joined Europe and the Americas for good. |
| Vasco da Gama | about 1469 – 1524 | The first person to sail from Europe to India. |
| John Cabot | about 1450 – about 1498 | The Italian sailor who gave England its claim to North America. |
| Amerigo Vespucci | 1454 – 1512 | The explorer America is named after. |
| Pedro Álvares Cabral | about 1467 – about 1520 | The Portuguese captain who claimed Brazil on his way to India. |
| Ferdinand Magellan | about 1480 – 1521 | The leader of the first voyage around the world. |
| Francis Drake | about 1540 – 1596 | The English sea captain who raided Spain's treasure and sailed around the world. |
| Captain James Cook | 1728 – 1779 | The navigator who mapped the Pacific more accurately than anyone before him. |
Dates with "about" are not known for certain. Where historians disagree, the biographies say so.