{"id":915,"date":"2021-11-16T13:07:09","date_gmt":"2021-11-16T13:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mermaidthea.com\/?p=915"},"modified":"2021-11-16T13:07:09","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T13:07:09","slug":"captain-james-cook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mermaidthea.com\/?p=915","title":{"rendered":"Captain James Cook"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Captain James Cook <\/strong>(7 November 1728 \u2013 14 February 1779) was a British explorer<\/strong>, navigator<\/strong>, cartographer<\/strong>, and captain <\/strong>in the British Royal Navy<\/strong>, famous for his three voyages <\/strong>between 1768 <\/strong>and 1779 <\/strong>in the Pacific Ocean <\/strong>and to Australia<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Captain James Cook <\/strong> <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

He made detailed maps <\/strong>of Newfoundland <\/strong>prior to making three voyages <\/strong>to the Pacific<\/strong>, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact <\/strong>with the eastern coastline <\/strong>of Australia <\/strong>and the Hawaiian Islands<\/strong>, and the first recorded circumnavigation <\/strong>of New Zealand<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The ship of Captain Cook “Endeavour”<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Cook joined <\/strong>the British merchant navy <\/strong>as a teenager<\/strong> and joined the Royal Navy in 1755<\/strong>. He saw action in the Seven Years’ War<\/strong> and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River <\/strong>during the siege of Quebec<\/strong>, which brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and the Royal Society<\/strong>. This acclaim came at a crucial moment in his career and the direction of British overseas exploration, and led to his commission in 1766 <\/strong>as commander of HMS Endeavour<\/strong> for the first of three Pacific voyages.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cook’s landing at Botany Bay<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In these voyages<\/strong>, Cook sailed thousands <\/strong>of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand <\/strong>to Hawaii <\/strong>in the Pacific Ocean<\/strong> in greater detail and on a scale not previously charted by Western explorers<\/strong>. He surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps <\/strong>for the first time. He displayed <\/strong>a combination <\/strong>of seamanship<\/strong>, superior surveying <\/strong>and cartographic skills<\/strong>, physical courage<\/strong>, and an ability <\/strong>to lead men in adverse conditions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The routes of Captain James Cook’s voyages. The first voyage is shown in red, second voyage in green, and third voyage in blue. The route of Cook’s crew following his death is shown as a dashed blue line.<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cook <\/strong>was attacked <\/strong>and killed <\/strong>in 1779 during <\/strong>his third exploratory <\/strong>voyage in the Pacific while attempting <\/strong>to detain the ruling chief of the island of Hawaii<\/strong>, to reclaim a cutter taken from one of his ships <\/strong>after his crew took wood from a burial ground. He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge that influenced his successors well into the 20th century<\/strong>, and numerous memorials <\/strong>worldwide have been dedicated <\/strong>to him<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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James Cook memorial on Kaiti Hill, Gisborne, New Zealand<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 \u2013 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to Australia. He made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific, during which… Continue reading Captain James Cook<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mermaidthea.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mermaidthea.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mermaidthea.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mermaidthea.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mermaidthea.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mermaidthea.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":920,"href":"https:\/\/mermaidthea.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions\/920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mermaidthea.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mermaidthea.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mermaidthea.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}