239 Items Tagged

Exploration

Some actual mountains encountered (and sketched) by Ross.

How a Fake Mountain Range Slowed Down Arctic Exploration

The 19th-century naval officer John Ross had a knack for seeing land where it wasn't.

Cara Giaimo March 9, 2018

Château d'Abbadie

Hendaye, France

Château d'Abbadie

The eclectic observatory castle of a 19th-century astronomer and explorer.

Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart’s signatures and route lines.

New York, New York

Fliers and Explorers Globe

A prized globe signed by Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh sits in the Brooklyn office of the American Geographical Society.

The largest paper fragment recovered from Blackbeard's wreck is about the size of a quarter.

Found: Scraps of a Book From the Wreck of Blackbeard's Flagship

Apparently pirates spent some of their free time reading about sea voyages.

Vittoria Traverso January 8, 2018

A map of the "summer aromas" of Newport, Rhode Island.

Learning About Cities by Mapping Their Smells

The U.K. artist Kate McLean is trying to preserve our olfactory memory.

Vittoria Traverso December 8, 2017

Ada Blackjack, pictured with the rest of the expedition to Wrangel Island.

Ada Blackjack, the Forgotten Sole Survivor of an Odd Arctic Expedition

In the early 1920s, 23-year-old Blackjack endured a two-year stay on frosty Wrangel Island.

Tessa Hulls December 6, 2017

For sale: a Waldseemüller world map in the form of a set of gores for a globe, 1507.

In 1507, This Map Used the Name 'America' for the First Time

Only five copies of this early map of the whole globe still exist, and one is now for sale in London.

Sarah Laskow November 27, 2017

Steller's sea cow was hunted to extinction fewer than thirty years after being described.

Found: The Massive Skeleton of a Steller's Sea Cow

A 17-foot-long sirenian emerges on a remote Russian island.

Vittoria Traverso November 17, 2017

Classic and chocolate-covered Kendal Mint Cakes.

Kendal Mint Cake

The original energy bar.

The Aven Underwater Museum.

Atsimo-Andrefana, Madagascar

Aven Cave

This underwater cave in Madagascar is home to what is thought to be the country's largest fossil graveyard.

A visitor to the Louvre is tempted by Canaletto's 18th-century painting "The Rialto Bridge in Venice."

Why Can't People Stop Touching Museum Exhibits?

After years of watching, one researcher thinks she's got the answer.

Cara Giaimo November 10, 2017

The memorial.

London, England

Sir John Franklin Expedition Memorial

A tribute to the intrepid explorer and his crew who perished in terrible conditions on an ill-fated expedition to the Arctic.

Captain Cook Statue

Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador

Captain James Cook National Historic Site

A statue of the early navigator stands overlooking the land he first surveyed.

One of the museum's dioramas of animals staged in their natural habitats.

Birchington-on-Sea, England

Powell-Cotton Dioramas

An English explorer's vast natural history collection has the first realistic dioramas of animals staged in their natural habitats.

The party that made it to the South Pole, including Robert Falcon Scott.

Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic Expedition May Have Been Sabotaged

New evidence suggests his second-in-command was to blame.

Kelsey Kennedy October 5, 2017

Maitara Island and Tidore Island seen from Ternate.

Ternate, Indonesia

Ternate Island

The remote island home of the overlooked explorer who co-discovered the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Gali marked settlements with little houses and reefs with dots.

Why Modern Cartographers Are So Impressed With This 16th-Century Map

A mariner's take on a town in "New Spain" was notably accurate for its time.

Sarah Laskow September 11, 2017

A 1798 engraving depicts <em>L'Astrolabe</em> and <em>La Boussole</em>.

Solving the Mysterious Disappearance of Two 18th-Century French Frigates

A lost 1818 newspaper article may be a critical clue.

Natasha Frost August 31, 2017