Posts Tagged Explorers

A statue of Captain James Cook located in Waimea, Kauai, Hawaii.

The Hawaiian Islands were called the Sandwich Islands by Captain James Cook in 1778. The name was in honor of the Earl of Sandwich. When Cook landed on Kauai at Waimea Bay, Hawaii became open up to the west. Cook’s stay on the island was short-lived when he was killed a year later by locals in Kealakekua Bay.

Source

Statue of Leif Erikson sculpted by Anne Whitney in 1887 and located in Boston.

The first reports of America (by a European) occurred in 986 by Norse navigator Bjarni Herjólfsson. He was sailing from Iceland and was caught in a storm and driven southward where he sighted new land. Reportedly, the new land he saw was the coast of America. Around 1000, Leif Ericson settled in an area he called Vinland. Scholars presume that this colony was located around Newfoundland.

To keep this within context, Herjólfsson and Ericson landed on North America almost five centuries before Christopher Columbus’ infamous 1492 voyage, which brought him to the Caribbean, Central America and other areas. The differences between the Norse and Spanish expeditions is that Columbus’ voyage yielded lasting European contact and exploration with the “New World,” while Vinland was only a short-lived colony.

Information:
Gordon Carruth and Associates, eds. The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1956,2.
L’Anse aux Meadows National Historical Site of Canada website.

Photo found online here.