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1 Portrait
2 Biographical Overview
3 Flag
4 Essay
5 Bibliography
6 Map
7 Video Interview
8 Watch Explorer Interview here

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Date of birth: August 5,1681

Country of birth:   Horsens, Denmark

Date of Death: Dec 8, 1741

Vitus Bering sailed from Russia.

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By: Christopher Lee

Did you know that Vitus Bering and his crew took three years just to get all the food and ship supplies? Vitus Bering was born on August 5, 1681 Horsens, Denmark. Bering represented Russia and he sailed in the St. Gabriel for sixteen years. His goal was to find if Russia and North America were connected.

Vitus Bering was born in Denmark and at the age of 22 he was in the Russian navy. He served well as a lieutenant so Peter the Great picked him to lead an expedition to see if Russia and North America were connected. It took the crew of the St. Gabriel three years to get all the provisions for the long voyage ahead.

Finally, after they were all prepared they finally set off to explore. They sailed for little while and found an island. They named the island Saint Lawrence. Soon, after they found St. Lawrence they came across bad weather so they had to turn back. But Bering wasn't ready to give up.

On their way back to Russia they found another island. If Bering and his crew explored the area around the new island they could have found North America, but they were in a rush and just missed North America. But Bering wanted to map the entire northwest coast and find brand-new routes to Japan. So because of his stubbornness he had new orders and two new ships ready to do what he wanted to do. On June 4,1741 he set off to accomplish his goal. But soon a storm came and separated the two ships. A little while after the two ships were separated Bering found North America. Bering's crew turned back to report their success, but the health and senior officers recommended to land the ship. The land was a failure. They were shipwrecked and many sailors were sick.

Soon the exhaustion and bad shelter got to the crew and Bering died on Dec 8, 1741. As you can see Bering did not achieve what his original goal, but he claimed Alaska for  Russia. Even though Bering did not achieve his goal, he gave a significant gift to Russia, by claiming Alaska,  finding a way to America, and finding other islands like the Komandorskie and more for Russia.