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    History – Famous explorers organized by era



    1. Antiquity:
    • Hanno the Navigator (Carthage)
    • Pytheas (Ancient Greece)
    • Zhang Qian (China)
    • Xuanzang (China)
    • Leif Erikson (Norse explorer)
    1. Age of Discovery (15th–17th century):
    • Bartolomeu Dias (Portugal)
    • John Cabot (Italy/England)
    • Vasco da Gama (Portugal)
    • Christopher Columbus (Genoa, under the auspices of Spain)
    • Amerigo Vespucci (Italy/Spain)
    • Ferdinand Magellan (Portugal/Spain)
    • Sir Francis Drake (England)
    • Juan Ponce de León (Spain)
    • Samuel de Champlain (France)
    • Abel Tasman (Netherlands)
    1. 18th-19th Century:
    • Louis Antoine de Bougainville (France)
    • James Cook (England)
    • Alexander von Humboldt (Prussia)
    • Lewis and Clark (United States)
    • David Livingstone (Scotland)
    1. 20th–21st century:
    • Ernest Shackleton (Ireland/Britain)
    • Robert Peary and Matthew Henson (United States)
    • Richard Evelyn Byrd (United States)
    • Yuri Gagarin (USSR) – First man to travel into space.
    • Neil Armstrong (USA) – First man to step on the moon.
    • Jacques Cousteau (France) – Underwater exploration.
    • Ellen MacArthur (Britain) – Long-distance yachtswoman.
    • Reinhold Messner (Italy) – Notable mountaineer.