Jean-François Galaup was born near Albi, France. La Pérouse was the name of a family property which he added to his name. He studied in a Jesuit college, and entered the naval college in Brest when he was fifteen, and fought the British off North America in the Seven Years' War. In the beginning of the war he was wounded in a naval engagement off the French coast and was briefly imprisoned. He was promoted to rank of commodore when he defeated the English frigate Ariel in the West Indies. In August 1782 he made fame by capturing two English forts on the coast of the Hudson Bay, but left the survivors with food and ammunition when he departed.
Scientific expedition
La Pérouse was appointed in 1785 to lead an expedition to the Pacific. His ships were the Astrolabe and the Boussole, both 500 tons. They were storeships, reclassified as frigates for the occasion. One of the men who applied for the voyage was a 16-year-old Corsican named Napoleon Bonaparte. He was a second lieutenant from Paris's military academy at the time. He made the preliminary list but he wasn't chosen for the final list and remained behind in France. The rest, regarding him, is history. La Pérouse was a great admirer of James Cook, tried to get on well with the Pacific islanders, and was well-liked by his men.
Alaska, Japan, and Russia
He left Brest on August 1, 1785, rounded Cape Horn, investigated the Spanish colonial government in Chile, and, by way of Easter Island(where he stayed for only two days) and Hawaii[, sailed on to Alaska, where he landed near Mount St. Elias in late June 1786 and explored the environs. Next he visited Monterey, arriving on September 14, 1786. He examined the Spanish settlements and made critical notes on the treatment of the Indians in the Franciscan missions.
The next year he set out for the northeast Asian coasts. He saw the island of Quelpart (Cheju), which had been visited by Europeans only once before when a group of Dutchmen shipwrecked there in 1635. He visited the mainland coast of Korea, then crossed over to Oku-Yeso (Sakhalin).
The inhabitants had drawn him a map, showing their country, Yeso (also Yezo, now called Hokkaido) and the coasts of Tartary (mainland Asia). La Pérouse wanted to sail through the channel between Sakhalin and Asia, but failed, so he turned south, and sailed through La Pérouse Strait (between Sakhalin and Hokkaido), where he met the Ainu, explored the Kuriles, and reached Petropavlovsk (on Kamchatka peninsula) on September 7, 1787. Here they rested from their trip, and enjoyed the hospitality of the Russians and Kamchatkans. In letters received from Paris he was ordered to investigate the settlement the British were to erect in New South Wales.
Pacific
His next stops were in the Navigator Islands (Samoa), on December 6, 1787. Just before he left, the Samoans attacked a group of his men, killing twelve of them, among which were Lamanon and de Langle, commander of the Astrolabe. Twenty men were wounded. The expedition continued to Tonga and then to Australia, arriving at Botany Bay on 26 January 1788. The British received him courteously, but were unable to help him with food as they had none to spare. La Pérouse sent his journals and letters to Europe with a British ship, the Sirius, obtained wood and fresh water, and left for New Caledonia, Santa Cruz, the Solomons, the Louisiades, and the western and southern coasts of Australia. Although he wrote that he expected to be back in France by June 1789, neither he nor any of his men was seen again.
Discovery of the expedition
On September 25, 1791, Rear Admiral Joseph Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux departed Brest in search of La Pérouse. His expedition followed La Pérouse's proposed path through the islands northwest of Australia while at the same time making scientific and geographic discoveries. In May of 1793, he arrived at the island of Vanikoro, which is part of the Santa Cruz group of islands. d'Entrecasteaux thought he saw smoke signals from several elevated areas on the island, but was unable to investigate due to the dangerous reefs surrounding the island and had to leave. He died two months later.
It was not until 1826 that an Irish captain, Peter Dillon, found enough evidence to piece together the events of the tragedy. In Tikopia (one of the islands of Santa Cruz), he bought some swords he had reason to believe had belonged to La Pérouse. He made enquiries, and found that they came from nearby Vanikoro, where two big ships had broken up. Dillon managed to obtain a ship in Bengal, and sailed for Vanikoro where he found cannon balls, anchors and other evidence of the remains of ships in water between coral reefs. He brought several of these artifacts back to Europe, as did D'Urville in 1828. De Lesseps, the only member of the expedition still alive at the time, identified them, as all belonging to the Astrolabe. Both ships had been wrecked on the reefs, the Boussole first. The Astrolabe was unloaded and taken apart. A group of men, probably the survivors of the Boussole, were massacred by the local inhabitants. According to natives, surviving sailors built a two-masted craft from the wreckage of the Astrolabe, and left westward about 9 months later, but what happened to them is unknown. Also, two men, one a "chief" and the other his servant, had remained behind, surviving until 1823, three years before Dillon arrived.
Juan Ponce de León
(c. 1460 – July 1521) A Spanish conquistador. He was born in Santervás de Campos (Valladolid). As a young man he joined the war to conquer Granada, the last Moorish state on the Iberian peninsula. Ponce de León accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World. He became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish Crown. He is regarded as the first European known to have visited what is now the continental United States, as he set foot in Florida in 1513.
It is thought that Ponce first landed on the site where Cockburn Town is located, on Grand Turk in the Turks & Caicos Islands. Ponce de León settled in Hispaniola after arriving in the New World. He helped conquer the Tainos of the eastern part of Hispaniola, and was rewarded with the governorship of the Province of Higuey that was created there. While there he heard stories of the wealth of Boriken (now Puerto Rico), and he sought and received permission to go there. In 1508, Ponce de León founded the first settlement in Puerto Rico, Caparra (later relocated to San Juan).
The Fountain of Youth
The popular story that Ponce de León was searching for the Fountain of Youth when he discovered Florida is misconceived. He was seeking a spiritual rebirth with new glory, honor, and personal enrichment, not a biological rebirth through the waters of the Fountain of Youth. The Tainos had told the Spanish of a large, rich island to the north named Bimini, and Ponce de Leon was searching for gold, slaves and lands to claim and govern for Spain, all of which he hoped to find at Bimini and other islands. The story of Ponce de León searching for the Fountain of Youth seems to have surfaced in the 1560s in the Memoir of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, and was later included in the Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos of Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas. The statue was made in New York in 1882 using the bronze from English cannons seized after the English attacked San Juan in 1792.
First voyage and discovery of Florida
Ponce de León equipped three ships at his own expense, and set out on his voyage of discovery and conquest in 1513. On March 27, 1513, he sighted an island, but sailed on without landing. On April 2 he landed on the east coast of the newly "discovered" land at a point which is disputed, but was somewhere on the northeast coast of the present State of Florida. Ponce de León claimed "La Florida" for Spain. He named the land La Florida, meaning flowery, either because of the vegetation in bloom he saw there, or because he landed there during Pascua Florida, Spanish for Flowery Passover, meaning the Easter season. Pascua Florida Day, April 2, is a legal holiday in Florida.
Ponce de León then sailed south along the Florida coast, charting the rivers he found, passed around the Florida Keys, and up the west coast of Florida to Cape Romano. He sailed back south to Havana, and then up to Florida again, stopping at the Bay of Chequesta (Biscayne Bay) before returning to Puerto Rico.
Ponce de León may not have been the first European to reach Florida. He encountered at least one Native American in Florida in 1513 who could speak Spanish.
Last Voyage
In 1521 Ponce de León organized a colonizing expedition on two ships. It consisted of some 200 men, including priests, farmers and artisans, 50 horses and other domestic animals, and farming implements. The expedition landed on the southwest coast of Florida, somewhere in the vicinity of the Caloosahatchee River or Charlotte Harbor. The colonists were soon attacked by Calusas and Ponce de León was injured by a poisoned arrow. After this attack, he and colonists sailed to Havana, Cuba, where he died. His tomb is in the cathedral in Old San Juan.
Via Alpina
The Alps are a unique area of almost 200,000km2 stretching over eight countries in Europe - France, Italy, Monaco, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia. They are one of the top tourist destinations in the world.
It is an area that offers opportunities for exploring history and culture and allows visitors to experience the shared Alpine way of life, which can be discovered through an extensive network of local, regional, and national trails intended for walkers of all levels.
On the initiative of the French Association La Grande Traverseé des Alpes, institutions, associations, and professional organizations in these eight countries have been working to create the Via Alpina, the first recognized walking trail described in multilingual documentation linking Trieste on the Adriatic Coast to Monaco and the Mediterranean.
Via Alpina has been recognized as genuinely contributing to the implementation of the Alpine Convention, which seeks to ensure sustainable development in the Alps.
Facts/Figures
• The Via Alpina covers eight countries, 30 regions, canons or länder, and more than 200 communes.
• The Via Alpina passes from one shoreline to another and the highest point is at 3017m at the Niederjoch pass (Italian-Austrian border).
• The Via Alpina route that was revised and adopted by all those involved in early 2001 consists of five different sections: the red, purple, yellow, green, and blue trails, which together represent more than three hundred stages and approximately 5000km of walking trails.
• By Country (58 cross border stages)
o Italy: 121 stages
o Switzerland: 54 stages
o Germany: 30 stages
o Liechtenstein: 3 stages
o Austria: 70 stages
o France: 40 stages
o Slovenia: 22 stages
o Monaco: 1 stage
• Red Trail: 161 stages. Trail linking Trieste and Monaco across all eight countries.
• Purple Trail: 66 stages. Slovenia, Austria, Germany
• Yellow Trail: 40 stages. Italy, Austria, Germany
• Green Trail: 13 stages. Liechtenstein, Switzerland
• Blue Trail: 61 stages. Switzerland, Italy, France
Captain James Cook, FRS (October 27, 1728 (O.S.) – February 14, 1779)
English explorer, navigator and cartographer. He made three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, accurately charting many areas and recording several islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. His most notable accomplishments were the British discovery and claiming of the east coast of Australia; the European discovery of the Hawaiian Islands; and the first recorded circumnavigation and mapping of Newfoundland and New Zealand. Cook died in Hawaii in a fracas with Hawaiians during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779.
First Voyage
In 1766, the Royal Society hired Cook to travel to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record a transit of Venus across the Sun. Cook was commissioned as a Lieutenant and given command of HM Bark Endeavour. He sailed from England in 1768, rounded Cape Horn and continued westward across the Pacific to arrive at Tahiti on April 13, 1769, where the observations were to be made. The transit was scheduled to occur on June 3, and in the meantime he commissioned the building of a small fort and observatory.
Cook lost not a single man to scurvy, a remarkable and practically unheard-of achievement in 18th century long-distance sea-faring. Adhering to Royal Navy policy introduced in 1747, Cook persuaded his men to eat foods such as citrus fruits and sauerkraut. At that time it was known that poor diet caused scurvy but not specifically that a Vitamin C deficiency was the culprit.
The Endeavour, his ship on this first voyage, would later lend its name to the Space Shuttle Endeavour, as well as the Endeavour River.
Cook's journals were published upon his return, and he became something of a hero among the scientific community. Among the general public, however, the aristocratic botanist Joseph Banks was a bigger hero. Banks even attempted to take command of Cook's second voyage, but removed himself from the voyage before it began.
Second Voyage
Shortly after his return, Cook was promoted from Lieutenant to Commander (correctly "Master and Commander"). Then once again he was commissioned by the Royal Society to search for the mythical Terra Australis. On his first voyage, Cook had demonstrated by circumnavigating New Zealand that it was not attached to a larger landmass to the south; and although by charting almost the entire eastern coastline of Australia he had shown it to be continental in size, the Terra Australis being sought was supposed to lie further to the south. Despite this evidence to the contrary Dalrymple and others of the Royal Society still believed that this massive southern continent should exist.
Cook commanded HMS Resolution on this voyage, while Tobias Furneaux commanded its companion ship, HMS Adventure. Cook's expedition circumnavigated the globe at a very high southern latitude, becoming one of the first to cross the Antarctic Circle on January 17, 1773, reaching 71°10' south. He also discovered South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. In the Antarctic fog, the Resolution and Adventure became separated. Furneaux made his way to New Zealand, where he lost some of his men following a fight with the Māori, and eventually sailed back to Britain, while Cook continued to explore the Antarctic.
Third Voyage
On his last voyage, Cook once again commanded HMS Resolution, while Captain Charles Clerke commanded HMS Discovery. Ostensibly the voyage was planned to return Omai to Tahiti; this is what the general public believed, as he had become a favourite curiosity in London. After returning Omai, Cook travelled north and in 1778 became the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands, which, in passing and after initial landfall in January 1778 at Waimea harbor, Kauai, he named the "Sandwich Islands" after the 4th Earl of Sandwich, the acting First Lord of the Admiralty.
From there, he travelled east to explore the west coast of North America, eventually landing near the First Nations village at Yuquot in Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island, although he unknowingly sailed past the Strait of Juan de Fuca. He explored and mapped the coast from California all the way to the Bering Strait, on the way discovering what came to be known as Cook Inlet in Alaska.
On February 14 at Kealakekua Bay, some Hawaiians stole one of Cook's small boats. In the ensuing skirmish, shots were fired at the Hawaiians but their woven war shields protected them, and Cook's men had to retreat to the beach. As Cook turned his back to help launch the boats, he was struck on the head by the villagers and then stabbed to death[3] as he fell on his face in the surf. The Hawaiians dragged his body away. The esteem in which the Captain was nevertheless held by the natives resulted in his body being retained by their chiefs and elders (possibly for partial human consumption, though this assertion remains contentious) and the flesh cut and roasted from his bones. Indeed some of Cook's remains, disclosing some corroborating evidence to this effect, were eventually returned to the British for a formal burial at sea following an appeal by the crew.[4]
Clerke took over the expedition and made a final attempt to pass through the Bering Strait. The Resolution and Discovery finally returned home in 1780.
Red-First Voyage; Green-Second; Blue-Third
The details of his voyage are too numerous to mention here; a more complete account can be found at Wikipedia, or other online resources.
Zheng He
(Traditional Chinese: 鄭和; Simplified Chinese: 郑和; Hanyu Pinyin: Zhèng Hé; Wade-Giles: Cheng Ho; Birth name: 馬三寶 / 马三宝; pinyin: Mǎ Sānbǎo; Arabic name: حجّي محمود Hajji Mahmud) (1371–1433), is one of the most well-known Chinese mariner and explorer and fleet Admiral, who made the voyages collectively referred to as the travels of "Eunuch Sanbao to the Western Ocean" ("三保太監下西洋") or "Zheng He to the Western Ocean", from 1405 to 1433.
Zheng was born in 1371 of the Hui ethnic group and the Muslim faith in modern-day Yunnan Province, one of the last possessions of the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty before being conquered by the Ming Dynasty. He served as a close confidant of the Yongle Emperor of China (reigned 1403–1424), the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
In 1424, the Yongle Emperor died. His successor, the Hongxi Emperor (reigned 1424–1425), decided to curb the influence at court. Zheng He made one more voyage under the Xuande Emperor (reigned 1426–1435), but after that Chinese treasure ship fleets ended. Zheng He died during the treasure fleet's last voyage. Although he has a tomb in China, it is empty: he was, like many great admirals, buried at sea.
The number of his voyages varies depending on the method of division, but he travelled at least seven times to "The Western Ocean" with his fleet. He brought back to China many trophies and envoys from more than thirty kingdoms -— including King Alagonakkara of Ceylon, who came to China to apologize to the Emperor.
Zheng was known to have visited the “Western Ocean” (i.e. the Indian Ocean) numerous times, including Southeast Asia, Sumatra, Malacca, Java, Ceylon, India, Persia, The Persian Gulf, Arabia, The Red Sea as far north as Egypt, and Africa as far south as the Mozambique Channel, as well as Taiwan seven times.
Speculation
There are speculations that some of Zheng's ships may have travelled beyond the Cape of Good Hope. In particular, the Venetian monk and cartographer Fra Mauro describes in his 1457 Fra Mauro map the travels of a huge "junk from India" 2,000 miles into the Atlantic Ocean in 1420.
Zheng himself wrote of his travels:
"We have traversed more than 100,000 li (50,000 kilometers) of immense waterspaces and have beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising in the sky, and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapors, while our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds day and night, continued their course (as rapidly) as a star, traversing those savage waves as if we were treading a public thoroughfare…" (Tablet erected by Zhen He, Changle, Fujian, 1432. Louise Levathes)
These hypotheses were given circumstantial evidence in Gavin Menzies’ book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. In it, Menzies, a former submarine captain and amateur historian, describes stories, artifacts, and other proxy evidence that Zheng He had been one of several Chinese explorers that, in the early 15th century, made voyages that encompassed the globe, visiting the Maya in Mesoamerica, the California Coast, Australia, finding the Cape Horn of South America, the Cape Verde Islands, and the Caribbean, all decades or centuries before their European counterparts. Also, these fleets were credited with circumnavigating Greenland, while proclaiming Europe unworthy of meriting a visit. Many of his hypotheses are controversial. If even some of them are proven true, Zheng He might become the most traveled and ground-breaking explorer of all time.
