Voyages & exploration

Italian-born navigator John Cabot sails under the English flag and makes landfall on the North American coast.

Henry VII rewards him with a gift of just £10 — roughly equivalent to a modest London craftsman's annual wage.

John Cabot was an Italian navigator and explorer. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII, King of England is the earliest known European exploration of coastal North America since the Norse visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. To mark the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Cabot's expedition, both the Canadian and British governments declared Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland as representing Cabot's first landing site. However, alternative locations have also been proposed.

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John Cabot sails west from Bristol and makes landfall on the North American coast, claiming it for England.

He is paid just £10 by King Henry VII for the discovery — roughly enough to buy a good horse.

John Cabot was an Italian navigator and explorer. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII, King of England is the earliest known European exploration of coastal North America since the Norse visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. To mark the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Cabot's expedition, both the Canadian and British governments declared Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland as representing Cabot's first landing site. However, alternative locations have also been proposed.

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Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci sails along the coast of South America and realizes it is an entirely new continent, not Asia.

Cartographer Martin Waldseemüller honors him by printing 'America' on his 1507 map — then has second thoughts and removes the name from his next edition, but it's too late.

Amerigo Vespucci's voyages convince European mapmakers that the Americas are a distinct continent, leading his first name to be permanently stamped on two continents.

Cartographer Martin Waldseemüller prints the word 'America' on a world map for the very first time.

The name honors Amerigo Vespucci rather than Columbus because Vespucci correctly argued the landmass was a continent entirely unknown to Europeans — not Asia.

The Waldseemüller map or Universalis Cosmographia is a printed wall map of the world by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507. It is known as the first map to use the name "America". The name America is placed on South America on the main map. As explained in Cosmographiae Introductio, the name was bestowed in honor of the Italian Amerigo Vespucci. The map also was first to depict the Americas as a distinct landmass clearly separated from Asia by the Pacific Ocean.

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Samuel de Champlain builds a small fortified 'habitation' on the cliff above the St. Lawrence River, founding Quebec City.

Of the 28 men who winter there that first year, only 8 survive — scurvy and dysentery kill the rest before spring arrives.

Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer, navigator, cartographer, soldier, geographer, diplomat, and chronicler who founded Quebec City and established New France as a permanent French colony in North America.

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Danish-born explorer Vitus Bering, sailing for Russia, sights the Alaskan coastline and confirms a vast sea separates Asia from North America.

Bering himself never sets foot on Alaskan soil — scurvy-stricken, he dies shipwrecked on the uninhabited island that now bears his name on the return voyage.

Vitus Jonassen Bering, also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering, was a Danish-born Russian cartographer, explorer, and officer in the Russian Navy. He is known as a leader of two Russian expeditions, the First Kamchatka Expedition and the Great Northern Expedition, exploring the northeastern coast of the Asian continent and from there the western coast of the North American continent. The Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island, the Bering Glacier, and Vitus Lake were all named in his honor.

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Royal Navy lieutenant James Cook departs England aboard HMS Endeavour on a scientific voyage to the Pacific.

The ship's official mission is to observe the transit of Venus from Tahiti — the astronomy is largely a cover for Cook's secret sealed orders to search for a southern continent.

The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771. The aims were to observe the 1769 transit of Venus from Tahiti and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita or "undiscovered southern land". It was the first of three voyages of which Cook was the commander.

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Captain James Cook anchors HMS Endeavour in Tahiti to observe the Transit of Venus across the sun.

The Royal Society's astronomer Charles Green notes that a persistent 'black drop' effect at Venus's edge makes the precise timing — the whole point of the trip — nearly impossible to measure.

The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771. The aims were to observe the 1769 transit of Venus from Tahiti and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita or "undiscovered southern land". It was the first of three voyages of which Cook was the commander.

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Meriwether Lewis and William Clark lead the Corps of Discovery westward from Camp Dubois toward the uncharted American interior.

Their party includes a Newfoundland dog named Seaman, who proves so remarkable that Native American chiefs frequently try to buy him from Lewis.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select group of U.S. Army and civilian volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark. Clark, along with 30 others, set out from Camp Dubois, Illinois, on May 14, 1804, met Lewis and ten other members of the group in St. Charles, Missouri, then went up the Missouri River. The expedition crossed the Continental Divide of the Americas near the Lemhi Pass, eventually coming to the Columbia River, and the Pacific Ocean in 1805. The return voyage began on March 23, 1806, at Fort Clatsop, Oregon, ending six months later on September 23.

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Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen deliberately lets his ship Fram freeze into Arctic sea ice to drift across the polar basin.

When the drift proves too slow, Nansen and one companion abandon the ship entirely, ski toward the North Pole on foot, and still set a new 'farthest north' record — 86°14′N.

Fridtjof Nansen's deliberate drift across the Arctic Ocean in the Fram sets a new record for the farthest north any human has reached.