James Cook

James Cook (1728–1779) was an English navigator whose three Pacific voyages redrew the map of the world. The son of a Yorkshire farm laborer, he learned seamanship in the North Sea coal trade, joined the navy in 1755 and charted the St. Lawrence and Newfoundland. Commanding the Endeavour from 1768 to 1771 he observed the transit of Venus at Tahiti, circumnavigated New Zealand and charted the east coast of Australia; on his second voyage he crossed the Antarctic Circle; on his third he explored the northwest coast of America and was killed in a skirmish at Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, in February 1779.