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276
Eratosthenes
He was the first person to use the word "geography" and invented the discipline of geography as we understand it.[3] He invented a system of latitude and longitude. He also calculated the circumference of the earth using stades. -
327
Pytheas
Greek geographer and explorer from the Greek colony, Massalia (modern day Marseilles). He made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe at about 325 BC. He travelled around and visited a considerable part of Great Britain. -
Jan 19, 1394
Prince Henry
Henry the navigator was an infante (prince) of the Kingdom of Portugal and an important figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire. He was responsible for the early development of European exploration and maritime trade with other continents. -
Jan 19, 1475
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
Was a Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an expedition to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World. -
Jan 4, 1480
Magellan
Magellan's expedition of 1519–1522 became the first expedition to sail from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean (then named "peaceful sea" by Magellan; the passage being made via the Strait of Magellan), and the first to cross the Pacific. It also completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth, although Magellan himself did not complete the entire voyage, being killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines. -
James Cook
Captain James Cook FRS RN (7 November 1728[1] – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer, ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean during which he achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands as well as the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.[2] -
Ben Franklin
He contributed to oceanography in the mid- to late 1700s by making and compiling good observations of ocean currents off the US East Coast. He was particularly interested in the Gulf Stream, a fast-moving current of warm surface water that sweeps up from Florida, along the continental slope off the US East Coast, and then bends eastward across the North Atlantic all the way to Europe. Franklin was the first to refer to the Gulf Stream as a “river in the ocean.” As Deputy Postmaster General of th -
Charles Darwin
English Naturalist, Charles Darwin, investigated the whole of nature leading him to make one of the most outstanding contributions to biology while on his voyage aboard the H.M.S Beagle. -
Matthew Maury
He was nicknamed Pathfinder of the Seas and Father of modern Oceanography and Naval Meteorology and later, Scientist of the Seas, due to the publication of his extensive works in his books, especially Physical Geography of the Sea 1855, the first extensive and comprehensive book on oceanography to be published. Maury made many important new contributions to charting winds and ocean currents, including ocean lanes for passing ships at sea. -
Challenger Expedition
First large-scale voyage with the purpose of increasing knowledge of the distribution of life in the ocean and of the chemical and physical properties of the ocean -
SONAR
Sonar (originally an acronym for SOund Navigation And Ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in Submarine navigation) to navigate, communicate with or detect other vessels. -
Bathysphere
a spherical deep-sea submersible which is unpowered and is lowered into the ocean on a cable. -
Leif Ericson
Regarded as the first European to land in North America (excluding Greenland), nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus.[3] According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, which has been tentatively identified with the L'Anse aux Meadows Norse site on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. -
Herodontus
Herodotus was a Greek historian in the fifth century B.C.E. His birth was around B.C.E. References to certain events in his narratives suggest that he did not die until at least 431 B.C.E, which was the beginning of the Peloponesian War. In his later years, Herodotus traveled extensively throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. There, he visited the Black Sea, Babylon, Phoenicia, and Egypt. He is best known for his work entitled Histories. Because of this, Cicero claimed him to be the Father of His -
Eric the Red
Eric the Red (also Erik Thorvaldson, Eirik Raude or Eirik Torvaldsson) was a native of Norway and the founder of the first European settlement in Greenland. Nicknamed for the color of his hair, Eric was apparently exiled around 982 for killing two men. For three years he sailed around and explored the southern part of what he dubbed Greenland. In 986 he left Iceland with more than 20 ships and around 400-500 people. He arrived in Greenland with 14 boats and an estimated 350 colonizers. Although
