- An oil painting depicts James Cook.
(1728–79). A British explorer and navigator, Captain James Cook explored the coasts of Canada and led three expeditions to the Pacific Ocean. He traveled as far south as the Antarctic Circle and claimed New South Wales in Australia for Great Britain. Early LifeJames Cook was born on October 27, 1728, in Marton, Yorkshire, England. James was a bright child with an inquiring mind. His father's employer paid for his schooling in the village until he was 12 years old. James spent his early teens on the farm where his father worked. Later he came into contact with ships when he worked in a general store in a coastal village. In 1746, at age 18, he trained under a well-known ship owner, John Walker of Whitby. James gained valuable experience in sea life while working on Walker's ships. He studied mathematics at night when the ships were being repaired. Early CareerIn 1755 Cook joined the Royal Navy. His seniors soon noticed his great skills as a seaman. At the age of 29 he became master of a royal ship called the Pembroke. During the Seven Years' War (1756–63) between Great Britain and France, Cook commanded a captured ship and charted the Saint Lawrence River in Canada. Between 1763 and 1768, after the war had ended, he surveyed the coasts of Newfoundland while commanding the vessel Grenville. In 1766 Cook observed a solar eclipse off the coast of North America and recorded the details. That achievement won him a reputation as an astronomer and mathematician. Voyages and DiscoveriesFirst VoyageIn 1768 the Royal Society of London, an important scientific organization, asked Cook to lead the first scientific expedition to the Pacific Ocean. In command of the ship Endeavour, Cook took members of the Royal Society to the island of Tahiti in the South Pacific, where they observed the passage of the planet Venus across the sun. From Tahiti Cook sailed south and southwest. He reached and charted all of New Zealand. He then crossed the Tasman Sea westward and, on April 19, 1770, reached the southeastern coast of Australia. Cook claimed the area and named it New South Wales because he thought it resembled the southern coast of Wales in Great Britain. Cook returned to England in 1771. In recognition of Cook's achievements, King George III promoted him to the rank of commander. Second VoyageCook soon began to organize another expedition. On his second voyage, which lasted from 1772 to 1775, he searched for a great continent that supposedly lay in the southern Pacific Ocean. In his search, Cook became the first European to cross the Antarctic Circle, but he did not go far enough south to discover the continent of Antarctica. From west to east, Cook explored the entire far southern Pacific and mapped the islands there. He discovered New Caledonia in the Pacific and the South Sandwich Islands and South Georgia Island in the Atlantic. The maps he made of the region are similar to those used today. When he returned to England, Cook was promoted to the rank of captain. He was also elected a member of the Royal Society, the scientific organization that had sponsored his first voyage. The society awarded him the Copley Medal, one of its highest honors, for a paper that he wrote on preventing scurvy, a common disease among sailors. Cook's crew seldom suffered from scurvy because he made them eat such foods as sauerkraut (finely cut cabbage preserved in salt water), a source of vitamin C. Third VoyageIn 1776 Cook set out on his third voyage. He aimed to discover the western opening of a possible northwest passage through Canada. Such a passage would allow ships to travel between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans without having to sail around the southern tip of South America. While traveling through the Pacific toward Canada, Cook came upon the Hawaiian Islands, which he named the Sandwich Islands in honor of the earl of Sandwich. From Hawaii Cook moved on to explore the northwestern coast of North America. Beyond the Bering Strait (the passage into the Arctic Ocean), however, a solid wall of ice blocked his ships. Cook was forced to return to Hawaii, where his crew got into a fight with some native people over a theft. Cook tried to make peace, but the angry Hawaiians attacked and beat him. Cook died on the beach at Kealakekua Bay on February 14, 1779. |