Cook, James ___ 1728-1779 ___ British ___ sailor, explorer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Cook was born at Morton, Yorkshire, and at the age of 18 was apprenticed to a coal shipping company. After nearly 10 years, he joined the British Navy. On a scientific expedition to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus across the sun, he was also asked to seek a southern continent. The voyage in Endeavour eventually took him round the world, and, during the journey, he became the first European to visit New Zealand. In 1770, he claimed for Britain part of the eastern coast of, what became, Australia which had not yet been mapped by the Dutch. It is claimed that Cook, by including fruit and sauerkraut in his crew's diet, was the first to avoid scurvy on long voyages. During a second journey, in Resolution, he sailed farther south than any other European, circling Antarctica but not sighting it due to ice. In 1775, Cook was promoted to captain. The following year, he departed on his third voyage, again in Resolution. During this journey, he discovered the Hawaiian Islands, sailed along the northwest coast of North America, landed on Vancouver Island, and sailed through the Bering strait. However, after being blocked by ice, he returned to the Pacific and Hawaii, where he was murdered by an islander.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1768-1779 ___ maritime travel exploration weather health Australia Hawaii

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext - first voyage
lots of extracts
lots of extracts

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
National Library of Australia - 1768-1778
British Library, Manuscript Collections

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Captain Cook's Journal during his First Voyage Round the World
A Voyage to the South Pole
The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery
 

May 2005, August 2008
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.