From Magellans circumnavigation to Amundsens polar expeditions —the journeys that reshaped our understanding of the planet and cost many their lives.

Epic Voyages

1. Ferdinand Magellan set out in 1519 with five ships and 270 men to circumnavigate the globe. Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines, and only one ship with 18 survivors returned to Spain in 1522.

2. The first circumnavigation of the globe was actually completed by Magellans slave Enrique —who had been taken from the Philippines years earlier. When the fleet reached the Philippines, Enrique could speak the local language, making him the first person to have traveled completely around the world.

3. Marco Polo traveled over 15,000 miles during his 24-year journey through Asia. His book inspired Christopher Columbus and other explorers, though some historians debate whether Polo actually reached China.

Tragic Expeditions

4. Robert Falcon Scotts 1912 expedition to the South Pole ended in tragedy. Scotts party reached the pole only to discover Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten them by 34 days. All five members perished on the return journey, just 11 miles from a supply depot.

5. The Lost Franklin Expedition of 1845 —two British ships with 129 men —vanished while searching for the Northwest Passage. Their remains were discovered over 150 years later, revealing the crew had resorted to cannibalism in their final days.

6. Amelia Earharts disappearance in 1937 during her attempted around-the-world flight remains one of the greatest aviation mysteries. Despite massive search efforts costing $4 million, no confirmed trace of her plane was found until possible wreckage was identified in 2024.

World-Changing Discoveries

7. When Columbus reached the Americas in 1492, he believed he had reached Asia. He died in 1506 still convinced he had found a western route to the Indies, never realizing he had discovered two entire continents.

8. The Americas are named after Amerigo Vespucci, not Columbus, because Vespucci was the first to argue that the lands were a New World rather than Asia. A German cartographer read Vespuccis accounts and named the continent America on his 1507 map.

9. Polynesian navigators colonized the Pacific using only stars, waves, birds, and clouds —without compasses or maps. They settled islands thousands of miles apart between 3000 BCE and 1200 CE, arguably the greatest feat of navigation in human history.

Modern Exploration

10. Mount Everest was first summited in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Over 300 climbers have died attempting the climb, and many bodies remain on the mountain because recovery is too dangerous.

11. The deepest point on Earth —Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench at nearly 11,000 meters —was first reached in 1960 by Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh. Only a handful of people have ever been there.

12. Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space in 1961. His 108-minute flight changed humanity forever —the first time a human had left Earths atmosphere and returned safely.

13. Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in 1969. The computers that guided the lunar module had less processing power than a modern smartphone.

14. Over 500 people have now been to space, but only 12 have walked on the Moon —and the last was in December 1972, nearly 54 years ago.

15. Exploration continues: in 2019, Victor Vescovo became the first person to visit the deepest points of all five oceans, while the James Webb Space Telescope now explores the earliest galaxies 13 billion light-years away.