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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. |
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 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. |
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 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. |
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 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. |
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 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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