Expedition History

Ice Ghosts weaves together the epic story of the Franklin Expedition—whose two ships and crew of 129 were lost to the Arctic ice—with the modern tale of the scientists, divers, and local Inuit behind the incredible discovery of the flagship's wreck in 2014. Paul Watson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was on the icebreaker that led the discovery expedition, tells a fast-paced historical adventure story.

This unlikely figure entered the rich man's world of polar exploration through an astonishing persistence and succeeded through the same quality. Shackleton's place in history is not the one he set out to make, but his extraordinary deeds have made his contributions to early exploration of Antarctica indelible. Despite the victor's wreath eventually going to another, Shackleton's name is essential to any discussion of Antarctic exploration, based on personal heroism more than logistical triumphs.

Ferdinand Magellan was unquestionably one of the more remarkable figures of the Age of Exploration, and given his fateful expedition, he has the era's most unique legacy. Today he is remembered as the first man to circumnavigate the globe, despite the fact he died thousands of miles away from Spain in the Philippines. It is also commonly overlooked that among the famous and historic expeditions in the early 16th century, Magellan's was by far the most dangerous, unique, and adventurous.

Galileo Galilei grew up in a time when nearly everyone thought the Earth was the center of the universe and the Sun and the planets revolved around the Earth. His intellectual world was dominated by the work of the ancient philosopher Aristotle. Science as we know it today was just starting to emerge from the dark ages and it was blended with religion so that the two at were hard to distinguish between. Galileo's work included a radial improvement in a parlor toy called a spyglass.

In 1957 the Soviet Union sent Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, into space. America took up the challenge to explore the next frontier. A dozen years, and 25 billion dollars later, the mission of Apollo 11 would yield man's finest hour. For that was the first time man's foot left prints on another heavenly body. And that was only the beginning. Apollo 11 is the incredible story of how a nation forged the technology during the turbulent 1960s to slip humanity from the bonds of its native planet. This inside look remembers those who made the great enterprise succeed.

Africa, 1863. Sir Richard Francis Burton is an explorer, a linguist, a scholar, and the king's agent - or is he a puppet being manipulated by forces he cannot understand? A race to find the source of the Nile! Algernon Charles Swinburne is a famous young flame-haired poet, thrill-seeker, and follower of the Marquis de Sade. Here they are, back to where the adventure began. It is 1863, but not the one it should be. Time has veered wildly off course, and moves are being made that will lead to a devastating world war.

Jefferson's America sheds new light on one of the key aspects of Jefferson's presidency. Almost everyone who has taken a US history course is familiar with Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase and the travels of Lewis and Clark, but that's not where this formative episode in American history begins or ends. In fact Jefferson sent four other expeditions west. Zebulon Pike was dispatched on two missions: first to the headwaters of the Mississippi and second toward what is now Colorado.

Cristóbal Colón es uno de los personajes más importantes y conocidos de nuestra Historia Moderna. Sin embargo para la mayor parte del público la epopeya colombina finaliza como una empresa gloriosa en 1492 con el descubrimiento del continente americano.

When it was discovered in 1922, in an Egypt newly independent of the British Empire, the 3,300-year-old tomb of Tutankhamun sent shockwaves around the world. The boy-king became a household name overnight and kick-started an international obsession that continues to this day. From pop culture and politics to tourism and the heritage industry, it’s impossible to imagine the past century without the discovery of Tutankhamun – yet so much of the story remains untold.

They were out of their depth, out of breath and out of time. It was 1973. Two men were trapped in a crippled submarine 1,700 feet below sea. They only had enough air to survive for two days. On the ocean’s surface there was a hastily assembled flotilla of rescue ships from both sides of the Atlantic. The world held its breath to await word of a rescue. In a routine dive to fix the telecommunication cable that snakes along the Atlantic sea bed, their mission had gone badly wrong.

Amid all the foreign adventurers that throng to Nepal to scale the world's highest peaks, there exists a small tribe of mountain people at the foothills of Himalayas. Sherpa tells their story. It's the story of endeavour and survival at the roof of the world. The story dives into their culture and tells of their existence at the edge of life and death. It traces their story pre- and post-mountaineering revolution, their evolution as climbing crusaders with never previously published stories from the most notable and incredible Sherpas of the last 50 years.

Thousands of books and articles have been written about the battles----both great and small----and the major personalities of the American Civil War. The vast majority of these books and articles have concentrated on the battles and personalities of the famous "household names"----the generals and political figures that first caused, and then directed, the tragic conflict to its bloody conclusion. The literature of the Civil War abounds with biographies of the heroes of the South such as Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, James Longstreet and Jefferson Davis as well as those of the ...

In Wonders in the Deep Mensun Bound, the renowned archaeologist who was the Director of Exploration on the team that discovered Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, argues that the history of the world is as much about maritime exploration and trade as it is about what happens on land. Using the many treasures Bound has discovered at the bottom of the sea and working with journalist Mark Frary, he sets out to write a maritime history of the world from 3000 BC to the present.

In 1865 a broken Admiral Robert FitzRoy locked himself in his dressing room and cut his throat. His grand meteorological project had failed. Yet only a decade later, FitzRoy’s storm-warning system and ‘forecasts’ would return, the model for what we use today. In an age when a storm at sea was evidence of God’s great wrath, 19th-century meteorologists had to fight against convention and religious dogma.

During the Age of Exploration, some of the most famous and infamous individuals were Spain's best known conquistadors. Naturally, as one of the best known conquistadors, Francisco Pizarro (1471/6-1541) is also one of the most controversial. Like Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortés before him, Pizarro was celebrated in Europe for subduing the Inca Empire, a culture that fascinated his contemporaries.

This enthralling true story of maritime tragedy and visionary science begins with a disaster to rival the sinking of the Titanic.In September 1857, the S.S. Central America, a side-wheel steamer carrying passengers returning from the gold fields of California, went down during a hurricane off the Carolina coast. More than 400 men--and 21 tons of gold--were lost. In the 1980s, a maverick engineer named Tommy Thompson set out to find the wreck and salvage its treasure from the ocean floor.

Some 70 years before the Mayflower sailed, a small group of English merchants formed the world's first joint-stock company. Back then, in the mid-16th century, England was a small and relatively insignificant kingdom on the periphery of Europe. Struggling with a single export - woolen cloth - the merchants were forced to seek new markets and trading partners. As this absorbing account shows, innovation and risk-taking were at the heart of the settlement of America, as was the profit motive.

This is volume 3 of 27 in The American Nation: A History, edited by Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor of History at Harvard University. This volume begins with the detailed narrative of the founding and development of the communities now included within the United States of America, and the story necessarily goes back to the discovery of the American islands and continents. Professor Bourne in his earlier chapters summarizes and restates, with many original conclusions, the controverted points with regard to the discovery of America.

We do not see the ocean when we look at the water that blankets more than two thirds of our planet. We only see the entrance to it. Beyond that entrance is a world hostile to humans, yet critical to our survival. The first divers to enter that world held their breath and splashed beneath the surface, often clutching rocks to pull them down. Over centuries, they invented wooden diving bells, clumsy diving suits, and unwieldy contraptions in attempts to go deeper and stay longer.

In 1862, ambitious scientist James Glaisher set out to do the impossible: ascend higher into the skies than ever before to establish his groundbreaking research. Glaisher’s death-defying journey forms the story of the major motion picture The Aeronauts, starring Eddie Redmayne as Glaisher and Felicity Jones as his balloon companion, Amelia Wren. Written in his own words, The Aeronauts chronicles Glaisher’s incredible flights and discoveries first hand, as well as his observations on the pioneers who came before and inspired him.