Explorer Series -- James Cook and the Explorer of the Pacific

Author: (American) David Haney, translated by Yan Kewei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-01-01
Features: James Cook was born in a village in northern England in 1728. In his teens, he went to sea for the first time. He joined the Royal Navy in 1775 and became an expert in navigation and cartography. In 1768, Cook was commissioned as the commander of the Royal Navy's Pacific Expedition. Over the next decade, he led the expedition on three epic voyages, exploring the unknown Pacific and uncovering the geographical secrets of the Earth's largest body of water. Cook visited places such as Tahuantinsuyu, Australia, New Zealand, the Marquesas Islands, Hawaii, Easter Island, and Prince William Sound, mapping these locations. He faced constant challenges—such as storms, towering waves, icebergs, coral reefs, tropical heat, and Antarctic cold—until his tragic death in Hawaii in 1779 at the hands of the islanders. In memory, Captain Cook is known as "the sailor of sailors," and no one in the history of exploration has matched his achievements. The world map will forever bear his imprint.