10 Famous Explorers Whose Discoveries Changed the World

Some basic effects of Europeans coming to North America are that the Native Americans caught new diseases which included smallpox, influenza, measles, and chicken pox. Explorers used superior fire power, like single shot muskets, to conquer natives.

There are three main reasons for European Exploration. Them being for the sake of their economy, religion and glory. They wanted to improve their economy for instance by acquiring more spices, gold, and better and faster trading routes. Also, they really believed in the need to spread their religion, Christianity.

European exploration of western Canada was largely motivated by the fur trade and the search for the elusive Northwest Passage. Hudson’s Bay Company explorer Henry Kelsey has the distinction of being the first European to see the northern Great Plains in 1690.

Explorers are people who have blazed the trail in going to new places. The Age of Exploration took place between the 15th and 17th centuries. During this time many countries in Europe sent out explorers to discover new lands, find trade routes, seek treasure, and gain territory for their country.

• Marco Polo. Photo: Leemage/UIG via Getty Images.
• Christopher Columbus. Photo: DeAgostini/Getty Images.
• Amerigo Vespucci. Photo: Austrian National Library.
• John Cabot. Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images.
• Hernan Cortes.
• Francis Drake.
• Walter Raleigh.
• James Cook.

Instead, explorers show us the huge importance of team-building, planning, faultless execution and courage. Second, explorers expand our ambition. They inspire us to think beyond what is possible.

15 Explorers Who Changed the World

• Marco Polo (1254-1324)
• Zheng He (c.
• Henry the Navigator (1394-1460)
• Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)
• Vasco da Gama (c.
• John Cabot (c.
• Pedro Álvares Cabral (c.
• Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512)

Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521): Magellan was the first man to set off on a journey to go around the world and find sea routes that would help others to circumnavigate the planet as well. The Portuguese explorer was also the first person to find his way through North and South America and reach the Pacific Ocean.

5 Modern Day Adventurers

• Jessica Watson – Circumnavigator.
• Eric Larson – Polar Explorer.
• David de Rothschild – Voyager.
• Andrew Skurka – Alaska-Yukon Explorer.

An Adventurer (ISFP) is a person with the Introverted, Observant, Feeling, and Prospecting personality traits. They tend to have open minds, approaching life, new experiences, and people with grounded warmth. Their ability to stay in the moment helps them uncover exciting potentials.

Bold Souls: 12 Most Inspiring Adventurers Of All Time

• Roald Amundsen. The Norwegian explorer was a prominent figure of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, as he was the first to navigate the Northwest Passage in 1906.
• Jacque Cousteau.
• Steve Fossett.
• Yuri Gagarin.
• Dale A.
• Hugh Glass.
• Bear Grylls.
• Edmund Hillary.

10 Greatest Maritime Explorers in History

1. George Vancouver (1757 – 1798) Image Source.
2. James Cook (1728 – 1779) <
3. John Smith (1580 – 1631) Image Source.
4. Francis Drake (c. 1540 – 1596)
5. Amerigo Vespucci (1454 – 1512) Image Source.
6. Ferdinand Magellan (1480 – 1521) Image Source.
7. John Cabot (c.
8. Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1506)

Vasco de Gama

Leif Eriksson

Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama’s

Vasco da Gama was best known for being the first to sail from Europe to India by rounding Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. Over the course of two voyages, beginning in 1497 and 1502, da Gama landed and traded in locales along the coast of southern Africa before reaching India on May 20, 1498.

After sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sights a Bahamian island, believing he has reached East Asia.

On September 9, 1776, the Continental Congress formally declares the name of the new nation to be the “United States” of America. This replaced the term “United Colonies,” which had been in general use.

New World countries include: the U.S., New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Australia and South Africa.

The 1960 discovery of a Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada, caused a sensation, proving the sagas were not just fiction. Vikings had indeed reached the coast of America five centuries before Columbus.

There is evidence of Norse trade with the natives (called the Skræling by the Norse). The Norse would have encountered both Native Americans (the Beothuk, related to the Algonquin) and the Thule, the ancestors of the Inuit.

Meet two present-day Vikings who aren’t only fascinated by the Viking culture – they live it. The Vikings are warriors of legend. In the old Viking country on the west coast of Norway, there are people today who live by their forebears’ values, albeit the more positive ones.

Several explanations have been advanced for the Vikings’ abandonment of North America. Perhaps there were too few of them to sustain a settlement. Or they may have been forced out by American Indians. The scholars suggest that the western Atlantic suddenly turned too cold even for Vikings.

Leif Eriksson Day commemorates the Norse explorer believed to have led the first European expedition to North America. Half a millennium before Columbus “discovered” America, those Viking feet may have been the first European ones to ever have touched North American soil.

It is widely considered fact that the Vikings and Northmen in general, were heavily tattooed. However, historically, there is only one piece of evidence that mentions them actually being covered in ink.

The settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows probably served as an exploration base and winter camp for expeditions heading south (Wallace 2003) . The sagas suggest that the Vinland occupation eventually failed because of conflicts both among the Vikings themselves and with the native people they encountered. …

Vinland, the land of wild grapes in North America that was visited and named by Leif Eriksson about the year 1000 ce. Its exact location is not known, but it was probably the area surrounding the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in what is now eastern Canada.

Why did the Vikings not stay in Vinland once they became aware of its potential? The Vinland sagas are rather definite that all expeditions returned to Greenland, the total years of their presence amounting to less than a decade. The L’Anse aux Meadows site was abandoned after a similar period.

The Route to Canada The Norse arrival in Canada was the culmination of many decades of western expansion driven by a thirst for land and profit. The only unequivocal archaeological evidence for Norse settlement in this area is found at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.