47 Facts About Lieutenant James Cook

1. Lieutenant James Cook was to command the Endeavour, a renovated collier, on a voyage to the Pacific Ocean, where he would observe the transit of Venus in Tahiti, and to search for evidence of Terra Australia Incognita, the fabled southern continent.

2. Lieutenant James Cook quickly became a skilled sailor and devoted his spare time to the study of mathematics and cartography.

3. Lieutenant James Cook disliked shop work, finding his only pleasure watching the sea and fishing boats that plied Yorkshire's coastal waters.

4. Lieutenant James Cook sailed again in 1776; in 1778 he visited and named the Sandwich Islands and unsuccessfully searched the coast of NW North America for a Northwest Passage.

5. Lieutenant James Cook initially named these Pacific islands the Sandwich Islands after his benefactor, the fourth Earl of Sandwich.

6. Lieutenant James Cook was born into a farming family in north Yorkshire.

7. Lieutenant James Cook was apprenticed to John Walker, a Whitby shipowner, at the age of seventeen.

8. Lieutenant James Cook enjoyed a record of very amicable relationships with the native peoples he encountered on his expeditions.

9. Lieutenant James Cook embarked on his third and final voyage in 1776.

10. Lieutenant James Cook left Britain in 1772 and sailed for the extreme southern Atlantic.

11. Lieutenant James Cook was charged with finding a southern continent, which was thought to exist in the extreme South Pacific; the mysterious continent was supposed to be temperate with fertile land.

12. At the completion of that task, Lieutenant James Cook continued to record significant discoveries.

13. Lieutenant James Cook earned his mate's certificate, but his merchant career was cut short by his decision to enlist with the Royal Navy in 1755 at the outbreak of the Seven Year's War.

14. Lieutenant James Cook made significant contributions to the fields of surveying, cartography, advanced mathematics, astronomy, and navigation.

15. Lieutenant James Cook died in a skirmish over a stolen ship in Hawaii.

16. Lieutenant James Cook died on Hawaii, during a confrontation between the ship's crew and a mob of native Hawaiians over the ship cutter's thievery.

17. Lieutenant James Cook decided he wanted to be the person in charge of the ship when Banks was putting together his part in the voyages meant to observe the 1769 transit of Venus.

18. One of the historians, Alexander Lieutenant James Cook, documented the journey in his 2004 article "Sailing on The Ship: Re-enactment and the Quest for Popular History".

19. Lieutenant James Cook named Sporing Island off the coast of New Zealand to honour Herman Sporing and his work on the voyage.

20. Lieutenant James Cook used a "method I never once knew to fail with seamen.

21. At that point in the voyage Lieutenant James Cook had lost not a single man to scurvy, a remarkable and practically unheard-of achievement in 18th-century long-distance seafaring.

22. Lieutenant James Cook had studied the old Dutch maps before leaving England and was fairly sure that Abel Tasman had found Bass Strait in 1642.

23. Lieutenant James Cook mapped the complete New Zealand coastline, making only some minor errors, such as calling Banks Peninsula an island.

24. Lieutenant James Cook Lieutenant James Cook is a former correctional officer and he has serves as a sergeant, lieutenant and captain in the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office.

25. Lieutenant James Cook remembered, "He was deeply devoted to his family, his church, West Virginia University, the banking community and people of Fayette County.

26. Lieutenant James Cook had no way of knowing it at the time, but he was effectively feeding the "microbial crew" within his crew.

27. In 2002 Lieutenant James Cook was placed at number 12 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

28. Lieutenant James Cook carried several scientists on his voyages; they made significant observations and discoveries.

29. In New Zealand the coming of Lieutenant James Cook is often used to signify the onset of colonisation.

30. Lieutenant James Cook tested several preventive measures, but the most important was frequent replenishment of fresh food.

31. On his second voyage, Lieutenant James Cook used the K1 chronometer made by Larcum Kendall, which was the shape of a large pocket watch, 5 inches in diameter.

32. Lieutenant James Cook was first struck on the head with a club by a chief named Kalaimanokahoʻowaha or Kanaʻina and then stabbed by one of the king's attendants, Nuaa.

33. The king began to understand that Lieutenant James Cook was his enemy.

34. Lieutenant James Cook took the king by his own hand and led him willingly away.

35. Lieutenant James Cook attempted to kidnap and ransom the King of Hawaiʻi, Kalaniʻopuʻu.

36. Lieutenant James Cook headed northeast up the coast of Alaska until he was blocked by sea ice.

37. Lieutenant James Cook anchored near the First Nations village of Yuquot.

38. Lieutenant James Cook made landfall on the Oregon coast at approximately 44°30′ north latitude, naming his landing point Cape Foulweather.

39. Lieutenant James Cook travelled to the Pacific and hoped to travel east to the Atlantic, while a simultaneous voyage travelled the opposite route.

40. On his first voyage, Lieutenant James Cook had demonstrated by circumnavigating New Zealand that it was not attached to a larger landmass to the south.

41. Lieutenant James Cook climbed the hill with three others, including Joseph Banks.

42. At this time, Lieutenant James Cook employed local pilots to point out the "rocks and hidden dangers" along the south and west coasts.

43. Lieutenant James Cook surveyed the northwest stretch in 1763 and 1764, the south coast between the Burin Peninsula and Cape Ray in 1765 and 1766, and the west coast in 1767.

44. Lieutenant James Cook has no direct descendants—all of his children died before having children of their own.

45. Lieutenant James Cook was taken on as a merchant navy apprentice in their small fleet of vessels, plying coal along the English coast.

46. Lieutenant James Cook mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail and on a scale not previously achieved.

47. Lieutenant James Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755.