That changed the world

Captain James Cook

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Cook came out of retirement in 1776 to find the

North-West Passage ... Hawaii would be his undoing!

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British explorer, navigator, cartographer and Captain in the Royal Navy. He made 3 ground breaking voyages of discovery, becoming the first circumnavigator to lose no personnel to scurvy and the first European contact with Australia. He chartered the islands of the Pacific from New Zealand to Hawaii with an accuracy that was previously unknown and is forever characterised in the names of his ships. ...Endeavour, Resolution, Adventure and Discovery!

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Cook was stabbed to death in 1779 in a skirmish with Hawaiian natives.

His ships were forced to return to Hawaii for repairs. This time the mood had changed. Cook and a party of nine marines went ashore to take the king hostage after the theft of a boat.  Angry natives hurled rocks at them, they opened fire, but were soon overwhelmed, only a few managed to escape. An obelisk now sits where Cook fell.

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"...farther than any man has been before me,

but as far as I think it possible for man to go."

James Cook

'Death of Captain James Cook' by George Carter - 1783

Photo: National Maritime Museum/Wikimedia

Believed to be in the Public Domain (Age - Copyright expired)

'Captain James Cook' by Nathaniel Dance-Holland - 1776

Photo: Bernice P. Bishop Museum/Wikimedia

Believed to be in the Public Domain (Age - Copyright expired)