Captain cook

Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British navigator, explorer, and cartographer. He is best known for his three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

Early Life

Cook was born in Marton, Yorkshire, England. His father was a Scottish farm labourer. Cook's talent for mathematics was noticed by his employers, who arranged for him to be apprenticed to a local shopkeeper in Staithes, a fishing village on the Yorkshire coast.

Career

Cook joined the Royal Navy in 1755. He saw action in the Seven Years' War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec City. This helped bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society. This notice came at a crucial moment in both Cook's career and the direction of British overseas exploration, and led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HM Bark Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages.

Voyages

Cook's three major voyages extended the known world and had a lasting impact on science, geography, marine biology, and anthropology. His first voyage (1768–1771) was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the Pacific Ocean aboard Endeavour, primarily to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the sun from Tahiti. During this voyage, Cook visited New Zealand and Australia, then known as New Holland.

His second voyage (1772–1775) aboard HMS Resolution was commissioned by the Admiralty to search for the fabled southern continent, Terra Australis. While Cook proved that Terra Australis did not exist as a large continent in the South Pacific, he did chart the Antarctic Circle and discovered several Pacific island groups.

Cook's third and final voyage (1776–1779) again aboard Resolution, was to find a Northwest Passage around the American continent. During this voyage, Cook was killed in a skirmish with Hawaiians on the island of Hawaii.

Legacy

Cook's voyages had a profound impact on world history, leading to the establishment of British colonies in the Pacific, the displacement of indigenous peoples, the spread of diseases to which indigenous people had no immunity, and the global expansion of European imperialism.

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