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 Richard
Hakluyt was the author of The
Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries
of the English Nation, consisting of
eyewitness accounts and other records of more
than 200 voyages, in 1589. These stories stirred
up interest in navigation and colonization,
expecially in the New World. |
 John
Ledyard wrote the first great travel
story by an American to be published in the
United States. In 1786-1788 he walked alone from
Germany to eastern Siberia. He died soon after
getting permission to undertake an expedition to
explore the source of the Niger River in Africa. |
 The Voyage
of the Challenger
In May of 1876 a ship sailed into the harbor of
Spithead, England, home from a voyage of three
and a half years and 65,890 miles over the seven
seas. Her voyage was the first to undertake a
scientific exploration of the sea bottom. By the
time she returned home she had sounded the depths
of every ocean except the Arctic. |
 Richard Henry
Dana was the author of Two Years
Before the Mast (1841), one of America's
most famous accounts of life at sea. Based on his
personal diary, the book describes the lives of
sailors in the ports, and a detailed account of
life on the California coast a decade before the
Gold Rush. He also wrote a handbook that included
a section of maritime law, and a book about a
trip he took to Cuba. |
 Matthew
Alexander Henson became the first
man to reach the North Pole by "land"
on April 6, 1909, a full 45 minutes before the
leader of the expedition, Robert Peary. |
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