Explorers

Amelia Earhart, the first female pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, mysteriously disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.

Sacagawea was a Shoshone interpreter best known for being the only woman on the Lewis and Clark Expedition into the American West.

Daniel Boone was an American explorer and frontiersman who blazed a trail through the Cumberland Gap, thereby providing access to America's western frontier.

Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama was commissioned by the Portuguese king to find a maritime route to the East. He was the first person to sail directly from Europe to India.

Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer and cartographer best known for establishing and governing the settlements of New France and the city of Quebec.

French explorer Jacques Cartier is known chiefly for exploring the St. Lawrence River and giving Canada its name.

While in the service of Spain, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan led the first European voyage of discovery to circumnavigate the globe.

Explorer John Cabot made a British claim to land in Canada, mistaking it for Asia, during his 1497 voyage on the ship Matthew.

While searching for the mythical fountain of youth, Juan Ponce de León founded the oldest settlement in Puerto Rico and landed on the mainland of North America, a region he dubbed “Florida.”

America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine navigator and explorer who played a prominent role in exploring the New World.

Jacques Cousteau was a French undersea explorer, researcher, photographer and documentary host who invented diving and scuba devices, including the Aqua-Lung.

Norse explorer Leif Eriksson is credited with being the first European to reach North America.

Matthew Henson was an African American explorer best known as the co-discoverer of the North Pole with Robert Edwin Peary in 1909.

British navigator James Cook charted New Zealand and Australia's Great Barrier Reef on his ship HMB Endeavour and later disproved the existence of the fabled southern continent Terra Australis.

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle was a French explorer best known for leading an expedition down the Mississippi River, claiming the region for France.

Erik the Red is remembered in medieval and Icelandic sagas as having founded the first continuous settlement in Greenland.

Sir Walter Raleigh was an English adventurer and writer who established a colony near Roanoke Island, in present-day North Carolina. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London and eventually put to death for treason.

Henry the Navigator, a 15th century Portuguese prince, helped usher in both the Age of Discovery and the Atlantic slave trade.

Believed to have been of Portuguese descent, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo was a soldier and explorer in service to Spain. He is best known for his explorations of the coast of California from 1542-43.

Italian explorer Christopher Columbus discovered the 'New World' of the Americas on an expedition sponsored by King Ferdinand of Spain in 1492.

In 1922, aviator Bessie Coleman became the first African American woman to stage a public flight in America. Her high-flying skills always wowed her audience.

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an Irish-born British explorer who was a principal figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Giovanni da Verrazzano was an Italian explorer who charted the Atlantic coast of North America between the Carolinas and Newfoundland, including New York Harbor in 1524. The Verrazano–Narrows Bridge in New York was named after him.

Explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca spent eight years in the Gulf region of present-day Texas and was treasurer to the Spanish expedition under de Narváez.