Captain James Cook

Great Lives

The Editorial team

   Can you guess who the first European to discover Australia and Hawaii was? It was Captain James Cook, whose voyages led to the setting up of several European colonies in the Pacific islands. The Royal Society hired him for his extraordinary talent for Cartography (study of maps). His task was to go in the Pacific and to observe and record the movements of Venus across the sun (Mind you, it occurs after each 105 years!) and to discover the mysterious place called New Holland which the Dutch claimed to have visited. His journey started from England in 1768 and he rounded Cape Horn by sailing through the Atlantic and halted in Tahiti, where he made his observations. Cook's knowledge of the Southern Pacific and Western North American coast was than any other person of that time. His accurate mapping of large areas of the Pacific was a major achievement. His crew contained people who steered the ship scientists and researchers. Cook was also the first one to sail the world twice. He was the first European to make contact with the Pacific islands (Polynesia). (They were tribal mysterious people from the Americas!). He discovered the cure for scurvy (lime juice), which the oarsmen usually suffered.

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   Can you guess who the first European to discover Australia and Hawaii was? It was Captain James Cook, whose voyages led to the setting up of several European colonies in the Pacific islands. The Royal Society hired him for his extraordinary talent for Cartography (study of maps). His task was to go in the Pacific and to observe and record the movements of Venus across the sun (Mind you, it occurs after each 105 years!) and to discover the mysterious place called New Holland which the Dutch claimed to have visited. His journey started from England in 1768 and he rounded Cape Horn by sailing through the Atlantic and halted in Tahiti, where he made his observations. Cook's knowledge of the Southern Pacific and Western North American coast was than any other person of that time. His accurate mapping of large areas of the Pacific was a major achievement. His crew contained people who steered the ship scientists and researchers. Cook was also the first one to sail the world twice. He was the first European to make contact with the Pacific islands (Polynesia). (They were tribal mysterious people from the Americas!). He discovered the cure for scurvy (lime juice), which the oarsmen usually suffered.

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