Chart 582 - Great Explorers 1

Great Explorers 1 Chart

Spectrum Chart - 582 : Great Explorers 1

1. Vasco Da Gama - Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. His initial voyage to India (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon & landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. His trip to India is widely considered a milestone in world history, as it marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of global multiculturalism.

2. Christopher Columbus - Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, coloniser and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. In 1492, Columbus was trying to sail to Asia. Instead he landed in the Bahamas. Columbus wanted to find a shorter way to get to Asia. He thought he could get to Asia by sailing west from Europe. He did not know about the countries in the Western Hemisphere, so he did not realise they would block him from getting to Asia. Columbus is considered the first European person to have discovered the Americas.

3. Ibn Batutta - Ibn Battuta was a Moroccan explorer. He is known for the account of his journeys called the Rihla. He travelled for nearly 30 years and covered most of the Islamic world. He also explored West Africa, Southern and Eastern Europe, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China. This distance was more than Marco Polo travelled, about 75,000 kilometres. Ibn Battuta was considered the greatest traveller of the medieval period.

4. Marco Polo - Marco Polo was an Italian trader and explorer. He was one of the first Europeans to explore East Asia. He travelled extensively with his family, journeying from Europe to Asia from 1271 to 1295. He remained in China for 17 of those years. Around 1292, he left China, acting as consort along the way to a Mongol princess who was being sent to Persia. His book Il Milione describes his travels and experiences and influenced later adventurers and merchants.

5. Leif Ericson - Leif Ericson was an Icelandic explorer and the first known European to have discovered North America(excluding Greenland), before Christopher Columbus. According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, tentatively identified with the Norse L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada. The Vikings called it Vinland. This theory is not supported by clear proof.

6. Amerigo Vespucci - Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian merchant, explorer and cartographer. He was the first person to explain that the New World discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 was not the eastern area of Asia, but an unknown continent (the Americas). America was named after the great man Amerigo Vespucci.

7. Captain James Cook – Captain James Cook was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer and captain in the Royal Navy. He made three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, mapping many areas and recording several islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He is most notable for the British finding the east coast of Australia, finding the Hawaiian Islands and the first mapping of Newfoundland and New Zealand. He also found Australia. During his lifetime, he sailed twice around the world. He crossed over the Antarctic Circle and found new islands and landscapes in North America and the South Pacific.

8. John Cabot - John Cabot was a Genoese navigator and explorer whose 1497 discovery of parts of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England is commonly held to have been the first European exploration of the mainland of North America since the Norse Vikings' visits to Vinland in the eleventh century.

To Buy Chart - CLICK HERE