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This is a link to 6 more sites on

Vasco daGama

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Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese sailor and explorer who made himself famous by captaining the first European voyage ever to sail to India.

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In June 1963, 70 students left Dublin Elementary for Clifford Smart Middle School and then eventually graduated from Walled Lake Senior High School in 1967. A group of those 70 students will be getting together for a reunion on July 7 at Billy's Tip-N-Inn on Highland Road at 6 p.m.

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PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW FOR INFORMATION ON YOUR EXPLORER.

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Facts about Spanish Conquistadors - Some Well-known, Some Unknown

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Spanish Conquistadors were one of the most specialized military units of their era. The following are some interesting facts about the Conquistadors.

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The Spanish word for conqueror is conquistador. Many Spanish soldiers and explorers traveled to the Americas after Christopher Columbus made the first trip in 1492. These conquistadors sailed to the Americas to conquer the native peoples, to spread Christianity, and to look for gold and other treasure.Because of the conquistadors, Spanish culture spread widely throughout South America, Central America, and the southern regions of North America.

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After the discoveries of Columbus had gained Spain a foothold in America, expeditions were soon set out to conquer and evangelize this ' New World'. The leaders of these expeditions are called conquistadores ("conquerors"), a name that denotes that they felt connected with the reconquista, the Christian (re)conquest of the Iberian peninsula from the Muslims ( 711- 1492). Many of the conquistadors were poor nobles () looking forward to make fortune in the Indies since they couldn't in Europe.

The first Spanish conquest in the Americas was the island of Hispaniola. From there Juan Ponce de Leon conquered Puerto Rico and Diego Velasquez took Cuba. The first settlement on the mainland was Darién in Panama, settled by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa in 1512.

The most successful conquistador was Hernando Cortes, who in 1520- 1521, with Native American allies, overran the mighty Aztec empire, thus making Mexico (then called New Spain) a part of the Spanish empire[?]. Of comparable importance was the conquest of the Inca empire by Francisco Pizarro.

After this, rumours of golden cities ( Cibola[?] in North America, El Dorado[?] in South America), caused several more expeditions to be sent out, but many of those returned without having found their goal, or having found it, finding it much less valuable than was hoped.

Some Spaniards, singularly the priest Bartolome de Las Casas defended Native Americans against of the abuses of conquistadors. In 1542, New Spanish colonial laws were maked to protect Indians. In 1552, Bartolomé de las Casas published " Short Account of the Destruction of the West Indies[?]" ( Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias), which was used by the other European colonial powers, rivals of Spain, in criticism of Spain's role.

List of conquistadors and Spanish explorers, with the period and place of conquest or exploration:

Diego de Almagro (Peru, 1524-1535, Chile, 1535-1537)

Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón[?] (United States east coast, 1524-1527)

Vasco Nuñez de Balboa (Panama, 1510-1519)

Sebastián de Benalcázar[?] (Ecuador and Colombia, 1533-1536)

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca[?] (southwestern United States, 1527-1536, South America, 1540-1542)

Hernández de Córdoba[?] (Yucatán, 1517)

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado (southwestern United States, 1540-1542)

Hernán Cortés (Mexico, 1518-1522, Honduras, 1524, Baja Caliornia[?], 1532-1536)

Juan de Grijalva[?] (Yucatán, 1518)

Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada[?] (Colombia, 1536-1537, Venezuela, 1569-1572)

Pánfilo de Narváez[?] (Florida, 1527-1528)

Diego de Nicuesa (Panama, 1506-1511)

Cristóbal de Olid[?] (Honduras, 1523-1524)

Francisco de Orellana (Amazon River, 1541-1543)

Francisco Pizarro (Peru, 1509-1535)

Gonzalo Pizarro[?] (Peru, 1540-1542)

Juan Ponce de Léon (Puerto Rico, 1508, Florida, 1513 and 1521)

Hernando de Soto (southeastern United States, 1539-1542)

Pedro de Valdivia (Chile, 1540-1552)

Diego Velasquez de Cuellar (Cuba, 1511-1519)

See also: Spanish colonization of the Americas

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

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Kids.Net.Au - Encyclopedia > Conquistador

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Kids learn about the biography and life of Spanish Conquistadors. Conquerers and explorers of the New World.

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Stanley was a Welsh-born American journalist and explorer, famous for his search for David Livingstone and his part in the European colonisation of Africa.

Henry Morton Stanley was born John Rowlands on 28 January 1841 in Denbigh, Wales. His parents were not married, and he was brought up in a workhouse. In 1859, he left for New Orleans. There he was befriended by a merchant, Henry Stanley, whose name he took. Stanley went on to serve on both sides in the American Civil War and then worked as a sailor and journalist.

In 1867, Stanley became special correspondent for the New York Herald. Two years later he was commissioned by the paper to go to Africa and search for Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone, of whom little had been heard since 1866 when he had set off to search for the source of the Nile. Stanley reached Zanzibar in January 1871 and proceeded to Lake Tanganyika, Livingstone's last known location. There in November 1871 he found the sick explorer, greeting him with the famous words: 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?' Stanley's reports on his expedition made his name.

When Livingstone died in 1873, Stanley resolved to continue his exploration of the region, funded by the Herald and a British newspaper. He explored vast areas of central Africa, and travelled down the length of the Lualaba and Congo Rivers, reaching the Atlantic in August 1877, after an epic journey that he later described in 'Through the Dark Continent' (1878).

Failing to gain British support for his plans to develop the Congo region, Stanley found more success with King Leopold II of Belgium, who was eager to tap Africa's wealth. In 1879, with Leopold's support, Stanley returned to Africa where he worked to open the lower Congo to commerce by the construction of roads. He used brutal means that included the widespread use of forced labour. Competition with French interests in the region helped bring about the Berlin Conference (1884-1885) in which European powers sorted out their competing colonial claims in Africa. Stanley's efforts paved the way for the creation of the Congo Free State, privately owned by Leopold.

In 1890, now back in Europe, Stanley married and then began a worldwide lecture tour. He became member of parliament for Lambeth in south London, serving from 1895 to 1900. He was knighted in 1899. He died in London on 10 May 1904.

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Stanley was a Welsh-born American journalist and explorer, famous for his search for David Livingstone and his part in the European colonisation of Africa. Henry Morton Stanley was born John Rowlands on 28 January 1841 in Denbigh, Wales. His parents were not married, and he was brought up in a workhouse.

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Sir Henry Morton Stanley (born John Rowlands; 28 January 1841 - 10 May 1904) was a Welsh journalist and explorer who was famous for his exploration of central Africa and his search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone. Upon finding Livingstone, Stanley reportedly asked, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

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Exploration - exploitation

John Rowlands, born January 28th 1841, was the illegitimate child of a woman from Wales. His mother and everybody else deserted him completely in his childhood, and in his early teens he left for America on a ship. He found work as a servant in New Orleans and was more or less adopted by the family he worked for. He took his new name from his employer and now became Henry Morton Stanley. He is notorious for making his own life story look different than it was, and he changed many facts in his autobiography and other of his books. He even lied about his heritage and claimed to be born in USA. Stanley fought for the south-states army in the American civil war from 1862, but was soon captured by enemy forces. To avoid staying in prison he changed side and became soldier in the north state forces.

Stanley developed to become a young and ambitious journalist. He frequently improved his stories or simply made them up. But he was good at it and it kept the editors happy. In 1870 he was assigned by New York Herald to search for the missionary David Livingstone in Africa. Livingstone had been reported missing for some time. Rumors were that he had been killed giving out prayers and medicine somewhere near Lake Tanganyika. Livingstone was already world famous and a best selling author. Any news about him could sell newspapers. Gordon Bennet Jr. , the owner of the New York Herald, was ready to pay a high price for the Livingstone-story. Bennet employed Stanley to find the missing adventurer -dead or alive, so to speak.

After preparing for almost a year, Stanley and his crew of around 170 men followed the same route as Livingstone. They started from the island Zanzibar out of the East African coast. An official expedition led by Verney Cameron had already been sent out, but the Americans (Bennet/Stanley) wanted to prove that they were superior to the British Empire. Livingstone was a legend and it would be a scoop for any journalist/newspaper to find him. A race for Livingstone had started. Cameron had a bad start, fighting diseases - and after several months of trekking it was Stanley who caught up with Dr. Livingstone.

Born:

John Rowlands 1841, Wales

Died:

1904 in London

Following in the footsteps of Livingstone

On November 10, 1871 Stanley approached Livingstone in the village of Ujiji. The village is on the eastern coast of Lake Tanganyika in what we today know as Tanzania. Stanley had found the only other white man in this remote part of the "dark continent". He greeted him with the famous words: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Livingstone was old and troubled by diseases, but with help from Stanley he came back on his feet and continued his search for the source of the Nile. In the next four months they explored the northern part of Lake Tanganyika together. While Livingstone continued his search, Stanley returned to London to tell his story about how the two explorers became friends. It is important to notice that the only source to these events are Stanley himself, as Livingstone did not return from Africa alive.

Stanley wrote a book about their meeting and he was present when the remains of Livingstone was buried a few years later. He probably enjoyed seeing how the British said goodbye to a hero, but did he really understand what Livingstone had done to deserve this honor? Livingstone cleared the way for many years of brutal exploitation of Africa - but his aim was different. He was loved by his African followers when he preached his way through the jungle. He shared his knowledge of medicine and wanted progress for Africa. First all he hoped to stop the inhumane slave trade once and for all. Stanley, on the other hand, clearly despised the black Africans (and any other non-caucasian). Stanley was hard on his helpers and often whipped or chained them as punishment for being "lazy".

In the following years Stanley returned to Africa exploring deeper into today's D.R. Congo and Uganda. This expedition was different. Stanley traveled with several hundred men, modern equipment, a ship(!) and plenty of weapons. He was still in competition with Cameron and other explorers, so he used guns to force his men forward at high pace. Livingstone didn't kill anyone on his expeditions, but Stanley destroyed everything in his way and fought wars with the local tribes. He managed to navigate on Lake Victoria and finally followed the Congo River all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. He became the first European to map these areas. In 1878 he went back to Europe loaded with Ivory and eager to tell of his findings.

A dirty job for the King of Belgium

King Leopold II of Belgium wanted his own colony abroad more than anything else. He probably already owned everything else and his only aim was to increase his own personal wealth and power. The small country of Belgium had no fleet and was relative isolated in the middle of Europe. Neither the Belgium government nor the other European countries would give the King what he wanted, so he decided to take it himself. He heard about Stanley's discoveries in Congo and was intrigued by the promises of this rich country far away. The King hired Stanley as his personal head of a colonization project with almost unlimited resources. The official story was that the King had formed the "African International Association for development in Central Africa" - and Stanley was expected to make local contacts on his expedition. Stanley had become famous from his meeting with Livingstone, and this story probably gave the expedition some credibility. But compared to Livingstone, Stanley suffered from a complete lack of moral.

Stanley was in Africa once again. This time he started his expedition from the Atlantic coast and he brought with him hundreds of workers. He struggled his way into Congo, put ships in Congo River, constructed roads and railways at an amazing speed. Stanley cleared all obstacles for the greedy ambitions of the Belgian King. When moving forward, he was very efficient in cheating or forcing the local chiefs to sell their land and submit to horrible conditions of the new owner. Stanley became more and more brutal in his methods and did not hesitate to shoot the Africans. Soon he had conquered the country and King Leopold had complete control with what was now called the "Congo Free State". Free trade of course, certainly not free for the people living there. The horrors and tragedies in Africa during colonialism are endless, but it is probably safe to assume that no place were as evil a place as the huge Belgian colony.

The King personally owned Congo! The colony was not the property of the Belgian state. The King earned a giant fortune from selling concessions for rubber and mining in the Free State. By taking women and children as hostages, men were forced to work for king Leopold. The King's soldiers also used torture, killing and started a horrible tradition of cutting off hands to prove that their bullets were spent well. The navigator and author Joseph Conrad wrote his famous novel Heart of Darkness after seeing with his own eyes what Leopold II were doing to Congo.

In 1908 the colony was finally turned over to the Belgian government and became "Belgian Congo". Some reforms were made, but at very slow pace and for Congo it was just a new chapter in the tragedy.

Stanley did an outstanding job for King Leopold II. When he had finished his deeds in Africa, he went to London and was offered a seat in the Parliament. He died in 1904.

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John Rowlands, born January 28th 1841, was the illegitimate child of a woman from Wales. His mother and everybody else deserted him completely in his childhood, and in his early teens he left for America on a ship. He found work as a servant in New Orleans and was more or less adopted by the family he worked for.

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Courtesy of the City Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol, England

(1841-1904). The first European to explore the Congo River from Central Africa to the Atlantic Ocean was Henry Morton Stanley. He traveled the great river for 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) from Nyangwe, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to its mouth. When he embarked on his long journey he had no way of knowing what river it was or where it would lead him. The Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone ...

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(1841-1904). The first European to explore the Congo River from Central Africa to the Atlantic Ocean was Henry Morton Stanley. He traveled the great river for 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) from Nyangwe, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to its mouth.

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Magellan's Voyage Around the World Part 1: The Story Before the Voyage

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Ferdinand Magellan's voyage was the first to circle the globe. Sadly, Magellan did not live to see his success.

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Ferdinand Magellan

In 1519, a Portuguese sailor set sail from Seville, Spain, in an effort to sail around the globe. This expedition was funded by Spain. After Magellan and his 260 men and five ships reached South America, they began looking for a way through the continent to the other side. After several months, they finally discovered the southern tip of South America, which is now known as the Straight of Magellan.

As Magellan traveled through these rough waters, one of his ships became separated and was forced to return to Spain. Another ship crashed on a rocky island.

The three remaining ships traveled for several more months and finally made it to the Philippines. Here, Magellan became involved in a local dispute with a tribal king and was killed. His remaining crew of 18 men sailed back to Spain, arriving home after being gone for three years.

This expedition was costly in both cost of goods as well as cost of life. However, it was important because it was the first time anyone had managed to sail around the entire globe. They proved once and for all that what Columbus had discovered was indeed a new world. They also discovered just how large the Earth really was.

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Ferdinand Magellan In 1519, a Portuguese sailor set sail from Seville, Spain, in an effort to sail around the globe. This expedition was funded by Spain. After Magellan and his 260 men and five ships reached South America, they began looking for a way through the continent to the other side.

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We all know Ferdinand Magellan as the leader of the first voyage to circumnavigate the globe, but that's not the only fascinating aspect of the famed Portuguese explorer's journey. Launched in 1519, Magellan's odyssey lasted three long years, claimed the lives of hundreds of people and forever changed Europe's understanding of world geography. Nearly five centuries after Magellan's fleet first left Europe, explore 10 little-known facts about one of naval history's most legendary-and deadly-voyages.

Magellan's expedition had a multinational crew.

Although it was a Spanish expedition, Magellan's fleet featured a culturally diverse crew. Spaniards and Portuguese made up the vast majority of the sailors, but the voyage also included mariners from Greece, Sicily, England, France, Germany and even North Africa.

Magellan's voyage was sparked by a treaty between Spain and Portugal.

Magellan originally launched his expedition as a means of finding a western route to the Moluccas, a small archipelago in Indonesia known for its stores of precious spices like cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. The Spanish were desperate to discover this alternate path because of 1494's Treaty of Tordesillas, a decree from Pope Alexander VI that had essentially divided the world in half between the Spanish and the Portuguese. This agreement placed the more practical eastern route to the Spice Islands under Portuguese control, forcing the Spanish to find a new passage by sailing west around South America.

Magellan was considered a traitor to his home country of Portugal.

While Ferdinand Magellan was originally from Portugal, King Charles I of Spain ultimately sponsored his voyage. This outraged the King Manuel I of Portugal, who sent operatives to disrupt Magellan's preparations, ordered that his family properties be vandalized and may have made an attempt to assassinate him. Once the expedition sailed, Manuel I even ordered two groups of Portuguese caravels to pursue Magellan's fleet in the hopes of capturing the navigator and returning him to his homeland in chains.

Many of Magellan's crew mutinied or deserted the expedition.

Magellan's mostly Spanish crew resented the idea of being led by a Portuguese captain, and the expedition was forced to weather two mutinies before it had even reached the Pacific. The first of these failed revolts was easily unraveled, but the second proved more elaborate. Worried that Magellan's obsession with finding passage to the Pacific was going to doom the expedition, in April 1520 three of his five ships turned against him. Magellan and his supporters ultimately thwarted the revolt, and he even marooned two men on an island when he found they were planning a third mutiny. The rebellions continued later that year when the vessel San Antonio deserted the fleet and prematurely returned to Spain.

Magellan's expedition claimed to have encountered giants in South America.

While anchored near modern-day Argentina, Magellan's men reported encountering 8-foot-tall men on the beaches of Patagonia. After befriending these "giants," Magellan supposedly tricked them into boarding his ship and took one of the men captive. The giant was later baptized and named Paul, but died during the fleet's long crossing of the Pacific Ocean. Historians have surmised that Magellan's giants were in actuality members of the Tehuelche, a naturally tall tribe of Indians native to southern Chile and Argentina. While Magellan's men almost certainly exaggerated the height of the Tehuelche, the myth of Patagonian giants would persist for many years.

Magellan gave the Pacific Ocean its name.

After weathering horrific storms near southern South America and losing one of his ships to rough seas, Magellan finally entered what is now known as the Strait of Magellan in November 1520. Crossing into a calm and gentle ocean, he named it "Mar Pacifico," which means "peaceful sea" in Portuguese. Magellan believed that he would quickly reach the Spice Islands, but his beleaguered fleet would sail the Pacific Ocean for 98 days before reaching any habitable land.

Magellan was a staunch Christian evangelist-and this may have cost him his life.

Although it was never an official part of his mission, Magellan took great pains to convert all the indigenous peoples he encountered to Christianity. The most notable example came in April 1521 in the Philippines, where he baptized King Humabon of Cebu along with thousands of his subjects. Magellan's religious fervor was so strong that he threatened to kill those chieftains that resisted converting to Christianity, and this harsh decree ultimately proved to be his downfall. When a king named Lapu-Lapu refused to convert, Magellan's men burned his village on the island of Mactan. Magellan later returned to Mactan with 49 men and demanded that Lapu-Lapu yield to his authority. The king refused, and in the ensuing battle Magellan was killed after he was struck by a spear and then repeatedly stabbed by the islanders' cutlasses and scimitars. In the Philippines, where Magellan is remembered as a tyrant rather than a hero, the Battle of Mactan is reenacted every April 27, with a well-known Filipino actor playing the role of Lapu-Lapu.

Magellan's slave may have been the first person to truly circumnavigate the globe.

One of the most important members of Magellan's voyage was his personal slave Enrique, who had been with the captain since an earlier voyage to Malacca in 1511. A native of the East Indies, Enrique reportedly spoke a Malay dialect and acted as the expedition's interpreter during their time in the Philippines. As many historians have noted, if Enrique was originally from that part of the world, then by the time the expedition reached the Philippines he would have already circled the earth and returned to his homeland. If true, this would mean the slave Enrique-rather than any of the European mariners-was the first person to circumnavigate the globe.

Magellan only deserves partial credit for the circumnavigation.

Magellan is often cited as the first explorer to have circumnavigated the globe, but this is not technically true. While he organized the voyage and negotiated the treacherous South American strait and the crossing of the Pacific, Magellan was killed before the mission ever reached the Spice Islands. Credit for the successful circumnavigation of the globe should also go to the Basque mariner Juan Sebastian Elcano, who commanded the return voyage of Victoria-the only surviving vessel-from late 1521 until its arrival in Spain in September 1522.

The next circumnavigation of the globe took place nearly 60 years after the return of Magellan's expedition.

When the lone vessel Victoria returned to Spain in September 1522, only 18 men remained out of the expedition's original crew of about 260. Circumnavigating the globe ultimately proved to be such a herculean feat-and the Magellan expedition's success so improbable-that it was 58 years before it was repeated. Led by the English navigator Sir Francis Drake, this second circumnavigation of the globe first sailed in 1577 and largely followed the same route as Magellan. Like Magellan's armada, Drake's fleet was also ravaged by the long journey, and only his flagship Golden Hind remained when he returned to England in 1580.

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10 Surprising Facts About Magellan's Circumnavigation of the Globe

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We all know Ferdinand Magellan as the leader of the first voyage to circumnavigate the globe, but that's not the only fascinating aspect of the famed Portuguese explorer's journey. Launched in 1519, Magellan's odyssey lasted three long years, claimed the lives of hundreds of people and forever changed Europe's understanding of world geography.

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This is a complete biography of Ferdinand Magellan

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Kids learn about the biography and life of explorer Ferdinand Magellan. The first to sail around the world.

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We hope you enjoyed creating the  first ever Explorer Trading Cards and learned something new in the process!

Now we should share them with some other classes.  Maybe they would like to try your web quest.

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This is the rubric on which you will be Evaluated.  Please make sure each of your trading cards can be marked against what they will be graded upon.

REMEMBER:  You will need to have a picture or pictures of your explore on the front of the Trading Card.  This is your chance to get really CREATIVE!!!

Make a collage, add our own drawing, anything that you think will make it really eye catching!!!

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On this day in history and today including special days, historical facts, customs past and present.

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Discover facts about the life of Captain James Cook - explorer, navigator and pioneer. This extensive biography covers all his voyages and should answer all your questions.

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Biography >>Explorers for Kids

Captain James Cook

Occupation: Explorer

Born: October 27, 1728 in Marton, England

Died: Killed by natives at the Hawaiian Islands on February 14, 1779

Best known for: Exploring the South Pacific

Biography:

James Cook was a British navigator and explorer who sailed and mapped much of theSouth Pacific.

Where did Captain Cook grow up?

James Cook was born on October 27, 1728 in Marton,England. His father was a farmer, but as James grew older he began to feel the lure of the sea. At around the age of 18 he took an apprenticeship as a merchant seaman. Although he did well and was advancing in the merchant navy, Cook decided to enlist in the Royal Navy at the start of the Seven Years War.

It was during the Seven Years War that James became a master at map making. His ability at surveying, navigating, and creating large accurate maps was noticed by those high up in the Navy.

The Endeavour

Cook was given command of the Endeavour by England's Royal Society. The ship was a cat-collier that was typically used for carrying coal. It wasn't fast, but it was durable and could carry a lot of supplies.

Captain Cook introduced some rigid and innovative rules in order to keep his crew healthy and safe. He required his men to bathe every day, the ship to be kept very clean, and the bedding to be aired twice a week. He also brought lots of fresh fruit to keep his men from getting scurvy. These rules and planning helped his men to stay healthy throughout the long voyages ahead.

First Expedition

Cook set off for his first journey on August 26, 1768. His main objective was to observe the planetVenus as it passed between the Earth and the Sun. This would help astronomers to calculate the distance of the Sun from the Earth. He also hoped to find the fabled southern continent.

Routes of Captain James Cook through the South Pacific
The first voyage is in red, the second in green, and the third in blue.
By Andre Engels
Click to see a larger view

During this trip he visited Tahiti (where he made the observations of Venus), the Society Islands, and New Zealand. He mapped much of the two main islands of New Zealand, but also ended up fighting with the local Maori tribe.

Next stop on the journey was the east coast ofAustralia. Here James and his crew found all sorts of interesting animals and plants including the kangaroo. Unfortunately, the ship was damaged on some coral and they had to stop for a while to do repairs. Many of the crew got malaria from mosquitoes during this stop and over 30 of the crew died from the disease.

Finally they returned home in July of 1771, nearly three years after their departure.

Click here to see an animated route ofCook's first voyage.

Second Expedition

Captain Cook's second expedition took place from 1772-1775. This time he took two ships, the Adventure and the Resolution. His goal was to either discover the southern continent or prove that it didn't exist. He went below 70 degrees latitude. This was the furthest south any European had explored. He also visited Easter Island.

Click here to see an animated route ofCook's second voyage.

Final Journey

Cook's final expedition lasted from 1776 to 1779. The goal of this journey was to find a northwest passage across North America to Asia. He searched the coast of Alaska to no avail. He did find theHawaiian Islands, however (they were named the Sandwich Islands at the time).

At first Captain Cook and his men got along well with the natives of the Hawaiian Islands. However, things went bad when the natives stole a sailboat. Cook tried to kidnap the chief to hold him as ransom for the boat. In the attempt a fight broke out and he was killed by the natives.

Cook's ship the Resolution
by John Murray

Fun Facts about Captain Cook

The first European to set foot on Australia's east coast was Cook's nephew Isaac Smith.

The Endeavour also had scientists aboard including botanist Joseph Banks. They collected and recorded numerous plants and animals throughout their journey.

Tahiti was so nice and the natives so friendly that some of Cook's crew wanted to stay.

The Maori warriors in New Zealand wore tattoos on their faces. Some of the Endeavour's sailors got tattoos on their arms and started a tradition that continues today.

As Cook was exploring during the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin wrote to the captains of America's warships telling them to not attack or harass Cook's ships.

Activities

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More Explorers: Works Cited

Biography for Kids >> Explorers for Kids

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Kids learn about the biography and life of British explorer Captain James Cook. He discovered much of the South Pacific for England.

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The Conquistador Who Brought Down the Inca Empire

Francisco Pizarro (1471-1541) was a Spanish conquistador whose famed conquest of the Inca Empire in the 1530s made him and his men fantastically wealthy and won for Spain a rich New World colony. Today, Pizarro is not as famous as he once was, but many people still know him as the conquistador who brought down the Inca Empire. What are the facts about Francisco Pizarro?

When Francisco Pizarro died in 1541, he was the Marquis de la Conquista, a wealthy nobleman with vast lands, wealth, prestige, and influence. It is a far cry from his beginnings. He was born sometime in the 1470s (the exact date and year is unknown) as the illegitimate child of a Spanish soldier and a household servant. Young Francisco tended the family swine as a boy and never learned to read and write. More "

In 1528, Pizarro returned to Spain from the New World to obtain official permission from the King to embark upon his mission of conquest along the Pacific coast of South America. It would eventually be the expedition that brought down the Inca Empire. What most people don't know is that he had already accomplished much. He arrived in the New World in 1502 and fought in various conquest campaigns in the Caribbean and in Panama. He was along on the expedition led by Vasco Núñez de Balboa which discovered the Pacific Ocean and by 1528 was already a respected, wealthy landowner in Panama. More "

On his 1528-1530 trip to Spain, Pizarro got royal permission to explore and conquer. But he brought back to Panama something even more important-his four half-brothers. Hernando, Juan, and Gonzalo were his half-brothers on his father's side: on his mother's side was Francisco Martín de Alcántara. Together, the five of them would conquer an empire. Pizarro had skilled lieutenants, such as Hernando de Soto and Sebastián de Benalcázar, but deep down he only trusted his brothers. He particularly trusted Hernando, who he sent twice to Spain in charge of the "royal fifth," a fortune in treasure destined for the King of Spain. More "

Pizarro's most trusted lieutenants were his four brothers, but he also had the support of several veteran fighting men who would go on to other things. While Pizarro sacked Cuzco, he left Sebastián de Benalcázar in charge on the coast. When Benalcázar heard that an expedition under Pedro de Alvarado was approaching Quito, he rounded up some men and conquered the city first in Pizarro's name, keeping the defeated Inca Empire unified under the Pizarros. Hernando de Soto was a loyal lieutenant who would later lead an expedition into the southeast of the present-day USA. Francisco de Orellana accompanied Gonzalo Pizarro on an expedition and wound up discovering the Amazon River . Pedro de Valdivia went on to be the first governor of Chile.

The Inca Empire was rich in gold and silver, and Pizarro and his conquistadors all became very rich. Francisco Pizarro made out best of all. His share from Atahualpa's ransom alone was 630 pounds of gold, 1,260 pounds of silver, and odds-and-ends such as Atahualpa's throne-a chair made of 15 karat gold which weighed 183 pounds. At today's rate, the gold alone was worth over $8 million dollars, and this does not include the silver or any of the loot from subsequent endeavors such as the sacking of Cuzco, which certainly at least doubled Pizarro's take.

Most of the conquistadors were cruel, violent men who did not flinch from torture, mayhem, murder, and rapine and Francisco Pizarro was no exception. Although he did not fall into the sadist category-as some other conquistadors did-Pizarro had his moments of great cruelty. After his puppet Emperor Manco Inca went into open rebellion, Pizarro ordered that Manco's wife Cura Ocllo be tied to a stake and shot with arrows: her body was floated down a river where Manco would find it. Later, Pizarro ordered the murder of 16 captured Inca chieftains. One of them was burned alive.

In the 1520s, Francisco and fellow conquistador Diego de Almagro had a partnership and twice explored the Pacific coast of South America. In 1528, Pizarro went to Spain to get royal permission for a third trip. The crown granted Pizarro a title, a position of governor of the lands he discovered, and other lucrative positions: Almagro was given the governorship of the small town of Tumbes. Back in Panama, Almagro was furious and was only convinced to participate after given the promise of the governorship of as-yet undiscovered lands. Almagro never forgave Pizarro for this double-cross. More "

As an investor, Almagro became very wealthy after the sacking of the Inca Empire, but he never quite shook the feeling (most likely correct) that the Pizarro brothers were ripping him off. A vague royal decree on the subject gave the northern half of the Inca Empire to Pizarro and the southern half to Almagro, but it was unclear in which half the city of Cuzco belonged. In 1537, Almagro seized the city, leading to a civil war among the conquistadors. Francisco sent his brother Hernando at the head of an army which defeated Almagro at the Battle of Salinas. Hernando tried and executed Almagro, but the violence didn't stop there.

During the civil wars, Diego de Almagro had the support of most of the recent arrivals to Peru. These men had missed out on the astronomical payoffs of the first part of the conquest and arrived to find the Inca Empire nearly picked clean of gold. Almagro was executed, but these men were still disgruntled, above all with the Pizarro brothers. The new conquistadors rallied around Almagro's young son, Diego de Almagro the younger. In June of 1541, some of these went to Pizarro's home and murdered him. Almagro the younger was later defeated in battle, captured, and executed.

Much like Hernán Cortés in Mexico, Pizarro is sort of half-heartedly respected in Peru. Peruvians all know who he was, but most of them consider him ancient history, and those who do think about him generally don't hold him in very high regard. Peruvian Indians, in particular, see him as a brutal invader who massacred their forebears. A statue of Pizarro (which wasn't even originally meant to represent him) was moved in 2005 from the central square of Lima to a new, out-of-the-way park outside of town.

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10 Facts About Spanish Conquistador Francisco Pizarro

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The Conquistador Who Brought Down the Inca Empire Francisco Pizarro (1471-1541) was a Spanish conquistador whose famed conquest of the Inca Empire in the 1530s made him and his men fantastically wealthy and won for Spain a rich New World colony.

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You might know a little bit about the history of Hernando Cortes. However, be prepared to delve even deeper into the life of this well known individual.

Facts About Hernando

Hernando Cortes was Spanish.

He was born in 1485.

He was born in Medellin, Spain.

He was born of Spanish nobility.

His parents' names were Martin Cortes and Catalina Pizarro Altamirano.

The military ran in his blood, as his father was an officer in the Spanish army during his lifetime.

He was very sickly when he was a child.

His parents had sincerely hoped that he would become a lawyer one day.

Cortes attended the University of Salamanca.

He had started attending the university when he was 14 years old.

In 1501, he failed his law studies and wound up leaving the University of Salamanca.

At 19 years of age he joined Diego Velazquez and Nicola de Ovando on their voyages to the New World.

In 1511, he moved to Cuba and became the secretary to Diego Velaquez and later owned a ranch in Cuba.

He is best known as a Spanish conquistador and explorer. He led expeditions to the mainland where he conquered Montezuma and the Aztec Empire.

In 1519 he tricked the Aztecs into giving him a lot of gold when he first arrived in Mexico. One of the treasures he found was chocolate.

When he first arrived in Mexico, the Talascan Indians attacked him and his crew. Two of his men died and 800 Indians perished.

After one confrontation with the Indians, he discovered that a few thousand of them actually wanted to join him.

Hernando Cortes was very warlike and confronted Indians with weapons quite a few times during his travels.

He attempted to convert the Indians to his own religion, although he was not entirely successful.

When he arrived in Mexico with 500 other men, some of the citizens mistook him for Quetzalcoatl, a god-king of the peoples of the land. It was prophesied that would be reincarnated in 1519, freeing the Aztecs from having to perform human sacrifices to guarantee that the sun would continue to rise.

He was offered a drink called Xocolatl. Cortes proceeded to take over the kingdom of five million people, receiving vast stores of cacao beans. These beans were used as currency as well as making a drink.

Cortes returned to Spain with the beans and equipment for making Xoclatl for Charles V but it was not well received, probably because it was strong and bitter. When sugar began to be added, as well as spices like vanilla and cinnamon, the drink became quite popular. The taxes on it were high, so only the rich could afford to drink it.Seeing the value of the cacao beans, Cortes started plantations in Mexico, Trinidad, Java, Haiti, and other places in the Caribbean. The Spanish dominated the cocoa industry for many years. Because this was highly profitable, the Spanish kept the details of processing the cocoa private. The work was done by monks, who guarded their secret, until 1580, when a chocolate production plant was built in Spain.

In 1536, he discovered the peninsula of California.

He was also a great soldier.

While he was in the military, his nickname was Killer.

He was also known as Hernan Cortes.

The mother of Martin, his first son, was La Malinche, who was also known as Dona Marina. She was Cortes' interpreter and instrumental in many negotiations.

His first wife was Catalina Suares, whose death was unexplained and became a scandal regarding whether she had been killed.

He then married Dona Juana de Zuniga.

They had four children together. Three of his children were girls.

He held office once he had helped to colonize Cuba.

He was also the Captain of Mexico.

According to the stories, Cortes' two loves were women and gambling.

People said that he was willing to task risks when it came to love.

Toward the end of his life, Cortes became less popular than he had been and he would often walk through crowds with people really not caring one way or another.

Hernando Cortes passed away in 1547 near Seville when he was 62 years old.

Often times, when we talk about colonization and religious conversion, debates come about regarding whether one was a hero or a villain. Perhaps we will never know all of the details of Cortes' life, but we know enough that you could make a sound judgment for yourself.

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what are some facts about hernando cortes

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What Are Some Facts About Hernando Cortes?

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You might know a little bit about the history of Hernando Cortes. However, be prepared to delve even deeper into the life of this well known individual. Hernando Cortes was Spanish. He was born in 1485. He was born in Medellin, Spain. He was born of Spanish nobility.

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Hernan Cortes

In 1519, an explorer by the name of Hernan Cortes left his home in Cuba in order to explore Mexico. Cortes was convinced that he could obtain more riches on the mainland than was possible by remaining on the islands in the Caribbean.

Cortes and over 500 men arrived in Mexico, and began traveling towards the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. The Aztec Empire was wealthy and in many ways more advanced than any European nation. However, they did not have horses, nor did they have guns. This gave the Spaniards a huge advantage.

In addition, many of the peoples who had been conquered by the Aztecs were unhappy about the way they had been treated by them. The Aztecs were brutal and often sacrificed the people they conquered to their gods. As a result, many of these people were ready to join forces with Cortes and his men to overthrow the Aztec Empire.

At first the Aztecs did not fight back. They thought that the Europeans were the fulfillment of an ancient legend that spoke of white-bearded gods.

After seeing the wealth of their empire, Cortes set out to take control of it. Within just a few years, he and his small army were able to defeat one of the most advanced civilizations of the era, setting Cortes as the ruler of Mexico in behalf of Spain.

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Hernan Cortes In 1519, an explorer by the name of Hernan Cortes left his home in Cuba in order to explore Mexico. Cortes was convinced that he could obtain more riches on the mainland than was possible by remaining on the islands in the Caribbean.

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Spanish Arrival for Kids, Cortez, Conquest of the Aztecs - Aztecs for Kids

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When the Spanish returned, they were prepared. They brought dogs and horses and weapons and many fighting men. They also had the help of other tribes in the area, who had no idea how cruel Spanish rule would become. The other tribes just wanted to get rid of the awful Aztecs.

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Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca ( Spanish pronunciation: [erˈnaŋ korˈtes ðe monˈroj i piˈθaro]; 1485 - December 2, 1547) was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century.

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Kids learn about the biography and life of Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernan Cortes. He conquered the Aztec Empire.

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Jeanne Baret (sometimes spelled Baré or Barret) (July 27, 1740 - August 5, 1807) was a member of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition on the ships La Boudeuse and in 1766-1769. Baret is recognized as the first woman to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation of the globe.

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When Jean and Jeanne Baret had their daughter they did the obvious and named her Jeanne. From a family of day laborers in the fields of Burgundy, France, she was destined to be poor and never venture farther than 20 miles away. But Baret's love of plants was her ticket to a worldly adventure that was at times more challenging than the life she left behind.

Baret came from a mixed family: her father was Catholic and her mother was Protestant. Protestants tended to be more literate having learned to read the Bible on their own, and Baret's mom taught her how to read. Perhaps the freedom and ability to learn about the world also instilled in the young girl the curiosity and desire to discover more about it.

Baret's broader education took place in the fields where she played. She became an expert in the medical properties of plants. As an "herb woman" she supplied druggists, physicians, dentists and veterinarians. One day when she was picking and analyzing in the fields she met her future.

MEETING MR. RIGHT Philibert Commerson was born near Lyon, France 12 years before Baret. He appeased his father by studying law and medicine and then followed his heart and became a botanist, at the risk of losing his inheritance. When he was 26 years old, this passion led him to explore and collect samples in the fields not far from Baret's home where they had a fateful encounter.

Commerson was married to a rich heiress, but he spent a lot of time with Baret learning about the curative properties of the local flora. When his wife died giving birth to their only child, Baret became more integrated in his life. She moved into his house and assumed the duties of nanny, household manager, lover and assistant.

Baret became pregnant when she was 24 years old, which complicated their lives. For Commerson marriage was not an option, so the couple had to deal with the fact that their lifestyle was unacceptable. The best solution seemed to be to move away. With the money Commerson inherited from his wife, they turned the need to escape the condemnation of their neighbors into an opportunity to broaden their horizons.

Commerson and Baret each did something to help facilitate a clean break. It was mandatory for an unwed mother to have a certificate of pregnancy which named the father. However, somehow Baret was able to make the appropriate connection which allowed her to decline to state who fathered her child, and she gave him her last name. Commerson gave his two year old son to his brother-in-law, a priest, to raise. The couple went to Paris to create a new life for themselves.

In December 1764 Jean-Pierre Baret was born. Commerson, having already proven he did not have much paternal instinct, hated the inconvenience of having a newborn around. Apparently Baret's maternal instincts were not very strong either, and one month later she abandoned her baby at the Paris foundling hospital which then turned him over to a foster mother. Less than one year later Baret received news that her son had died.

In a way, Baret had been relieved of one burden, but another one manifested. Commerson had pleurisy. Baret became the caregiver of her lover and his collection of plants. As he healed he was able to write a book, but he continued to look for the perfect project that would really put his name on the map.

RUNNING AWAY TOGETHER Britain, the Netherlands and Spain had already sailed around the world, and France wanted to get in the game. The goal was to find a land mass in the southern hemisphere. An expedition was planned, and Commerson was selected to be the naturalist on board who would discover and collect unknown species of flora and fauna. It was the perfect opportunity for Commerson, but not for Baret. Women were not allowed on French naval ships, but the couple came up with a solution: dress Baret as a man and have her work as the naturalist's assistant since she had the experience to be convincing. To facilitate the ruse, she started using the masculine spelling of her name, Jean.

The frigate La Boudeuse, under the command of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, and the supply ship L'Etoile, with captain Francois Chenard de la Giraudais at the helm, set sail together on February 1, 1767. Commerson and his assistant were on the Etoile. Baret disguised her gender by wrapping her chest with linen bandages, so tight that she had trouble taking a deep breath, and wearing men's clothing. It was her job to carry onboard her boss's bags and most of the extensive field equipment they brought along. When captain La Giraudais saw how much they had, he knew it would not all fit in the small berth they had been assigned. He offered the scientist and his assistant the 30 x 15 foot captain's cabin.

Suspicions about Baret's gender were aroused immediately. It was very unusual for a servant to sleep in the same cabin as his master, and Baret was never seen relieving herself at the "head," holes cut out of the protruding part of the forward deck. Such a breach of regulations could ruin La Giraudais' career, so he ordered Baret to sleep with the other servants. She did not feel safe in that environment, so she slept with one of Commerson's loaded pistols and threatened to use it one evening when she was maliciously approached by some curious men.

La Giraudais called Baret in for questioning, and she explained her situation by claiming to be a eunuch who had supervised a sultan's harem in the Ottoman Empire. While the captain may not have been totally convinced, it was good enough to be allowed back in Commerson's cabin. In addition, a previous dog bite in Commerson's leg had become ulcerated. The infirmity was another justification to allow her to reside in the master's cabin so she could tend to his needs.

Baret's life on the ship was not easy. Living in such close quarters with Commerson made him quite moody. The temperature was consistently in the 80s, and the sweat-soaked linen wrap chaffed at her skin giving her eczema. They were both living for the day when they could get off the ship.

The first opportunity to disembark was a brief stop in Montevideo, Uruguay before heading up the eastern coast of South America to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In mid July, five months after leaving France, the naturalists were able to go ashore and start the work they were commissioned to do.

DOING A MAN'S JOB The sores on Commerson's leg were turning into gangrene. Baret's treatments prevented amputation, but Commerson's mobility was severely restricted. He was able to take the rowboat but he was in no condition to wander around collecting plant samples. It was up to Baret to do all the physical work. She carried the food for the day, the wooden presses for preserving samples and all the field equipment which included a spade, glass vials for seeds, tiny boxes for insects, magnifying glasses, a telescope, a compass and a butterfly net. Commerson lightly referred to Baret as his "beast of burden."

The most well known discovery Baret made was a colorful vine native to South America. Commerson respectfully named it after Commander Bougainville: Bougainvillea brasiliensis, or what we call bougainvillea.

The Boudeuse and the Etoile continued their tandem journey back down the coast of South America where they spent 38 days feeling their way through the perilous maze of the Strait of Magellan. There were no charts for navigation since this was the first time French ships were in the region. They stopped in Patagonia and started across the Pacific Ocean at the end of January 1768. Whenever they stopped, Baret and Commerson went botanizing.

COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET If Baret's gender had been a secret up to that point, that changed when they hit Tahiti. A native Tahitian named Aotourou, with previous experience with foreign ships, came onboard the Etoile. He saw Baret standing with several other crew members, pointed to her and identified her as a girl. Undoubtedly confused by the accuracy of the observation and visibly angry at being outed, she ran into her cabin. Aotourou, unaware that he had said anything wrong, offered an explanation. In his culture it was very common for some men to dress like and perform the duties of women (called mahu). In fact, they held a respected place in the society as having the best qualities of men and women. Aotourou believed Baret to be a mahu, someone who dressed and acted like a person of the opposite sex, with a specific purpose on the crew. Now that Baret's identity was revealed, she was afraid of being attacked and carried a pistol with her whenever she left the cabin.

After leaving Tahiti in April 1768, the conditions of the trip got progressively worse. They sailed for three months without being able to find a suitable port. They used up all the fresh water, and the cases of scurvy increased daily. They couldn't seem to catch any fish and had to resort to eating the rats onboard. When they finally landed on the island of New Ireland (part of Papua New Guinea) Baret had a few days of successful collecting before her life became a nightmare.

Each day Baret went botanizing, accompanied by a pistol to protect herself from her fellow crew members more than the natives. Several days after their arrival Baret joined the other servants who were doing laundry. They had been plotting to confirm Baret's sex for themselves, and she unwittingly gave them the opportunity they were waiting for. They stole her gun and proceeded to rape her. In relating the incident in his journal, the ship's doctor justified the actions of the men by conveying the benefit to Baret: she no longer had to bind herself to hide her identity. Back on board, Commerson feigned surprise at the news that Baret was a woman in order to protect his job. For the rest of the journey, Baret secluded herself in their cabin.

After leaving New Ireland, the explorers traveled for six weeks without any real food, and starvation was a constant threat until they could get provisions on the Dutch island of Buru. This posed a problem especially for Baret because she was pregnant.

In early November 1768 the expedition landed on the island of Mauritius, near Madagascar. Commerson had known the civil administrator from Paris, and he invited the couple to stay in his home at Port Louis. Baret was given her own room in the servants' quarters, and she had some privacy for the first time in almost two years. When the Etoile and Boudeuse headed back to France about a month later, Baret and Commerson stayed on the island.

When it came time to deliver the baby, Baret and Commerson went to a plantation in Flacq in the northern part of the island and stayed with a Mr. Bezac. The new mom didn't feel any more affection for this child than she had for her first one, and she left him to live with Bezac.

Baret and Commerson went to Madagascar for four months and collected 500 species of flora and fauna. When they returned to Mauritius they had to find a new place to live. They rented a house and lived together as a couple for the first time since leaving Paris. The contentment of this arrangement did not last long, however, because Commerson was diagnosed with rheumatism and then dysentery. Bezac welcomed them again in Flacq where Commerson died in 1773.

GOING HOME Baret was ready to return to France, but she had no money and no place to live until she could get some. She said goodbye to her son again and moved back down to Port Louis. She worked as an herb woman and barmaid for survival. While she was serving drinks she met a French soldier, Jean Dubernat, on his way back to France after serving in one of the colonies. Whether it was for love or convenience we can't be sure, but Baret and Dubernat were married on May, 1774. Presumably to give herself a fresh start in life, the bride signed her name with a new spelling: Barret.

When Baret landed on French soil near the end of 1774, she became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. But unlike the arrival of Bougainville and the crews of the two naval vessels five years earlier, there was no ceremony or recognition of her achievement.

The new couple set up house in Dubernat's home town of Saint-Aulaye. Commerson had provided for Baret before they left Paris, leaving 600 livres to her in his will which she collected when she returned to France. That was about six times the annual wage of a servant. She finally had the means to buy a house and give her life some stability.

Baret did receive recognition for her contribution to society as a naturalist. Nine years later, the Ministry of Marine granted her a pension of 200 livres a year. On August 5, 1807, at age sixty-seven, Baret died. She left behind a legacy of plants, seeds, shells and insects that are housed in the Museum national d'histoire naturelle, giving future generations insight into the world around them.

QUESTION: What would you like to be remembered for accomplishing when you die?

©2011 Debbie Foulkes All Rights Reserved

Ridley, Glynis, The Discovery of Jeanne Baret, A Story of Science, The High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe. New York: Crown Publishers, 2010.
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2005/s1323985.htm

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JEANNE BARET (1740 - 1807) First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe

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When Jean and Jeanne Baret had their daughter they did the obvious and named her Jeanne. From a family of day laborers in the fields of Burgundy, France, she was destined to be poor and never venture farther than 20 miles away. But Baret's love of plants was her ticket to a worldly adventure that...

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Journeys of Enlightenment: The Explorers: Jeanne Baret

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Commerson's appointment allowed for him to bring a personal servant. He 'smuggled' his 25-year-old female companion 'Madame Bonnefoy' or Jeanne Baret (Baré) on board. Disguised as a man 'Jean' assisted Commerson with the collection, preparation and documentation of the plant specimens.

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In British diplomatic group photographs of the early 20th-century Middle East, amid the plumes and uniforms and the calm paraphernalia of an empire going to hell in a bucket, there is often a solitary female. The woman is slim, with a head of luxuriant hair, and neatly dressed in billowing muslins or in the pencil silhouette and cloche hats of jazz-age Baghdad.

The woman is Gertrude Bell, who is as responsible as anybody for the rickety national state first known as Mesopotamia, and now as Iraq. As a powerful official of the British administration in Baghdad after the first world war, Bell ensured that an Arab state was founded from the three Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, but one which was too weak to be independent of Britain. "I had a well-spent morning at the office making out the southern desert frontier of the Iraq," she wrote to her father on December 4 1921.

One of Oxford University's most brilliant students, the greatest woman mountaineer of her age, an archaeologist and linguist, passionate, unhappy and rich, Bell saw in Arab male society, and what US President Woodrow Wilson called "the whole disgusting scramble" for the Middle East after the first world war, opportunities that were unthinkable at home.

John Buchan, in his novel Greenmantle (1916), and TE Lawrence in his guerrilla exploits in Arabia the following year, made popular a myth that an Englishman could become an Arab - only more so. To her generation in Britain, Bell went one better. She seemed to move as an equal among the sheikhs without compromising her British femininity. Her letters to her father and stepmother, one of the great correspondences of the past century, pass easily from orders for cotton gowns at Harvey and Nichols [sic] to the new-fangled British air warfare being tried out on recalcitrant Iraqi Arabs and Kurds.

The historical waters have closed over TE Lawrence. Even back in the 70s, I could find nobody with any recollection of him at the scenes of his exploits in western Arabia. But "Miss Bell" is still a name in Baghdad. Even in conversations with the vicious and cornered cadres of Saddam Hussein's regime, her name will come up to evoke, for a moment, an innocent Baghdad of picnics in the palm gardens and bathing parties in the Tigris.

Yet Bell and her superior as British high commissioner, Sir Percy Cox, laid down policies of state in Iraq that were taken up by Saddam's Arab Ba'ath socialist party. Those policies were to retain, if necessary by violence, the Kurdish mountains as a buffer against Turkey and Russia; to promote Sunni Muslims and other minorities over the Shia majority; to repress the Shia clergy in Najaf, Kerbela and Kazimain, or expel them to Iran; to buy off the big landowners and tribal elders; to stage disreputable plebiscites; and to deploy air power as a form of political control. "Iraq can only be ruled by force," a senior Ba'ath official told me in 1999. "Mesopotamia is not a civilised state," Bell wrote to her father on December 18 1920.

The Ba'ath is facing extinction. Any US civil and military administration in its place will have the precedent of Bell's 1920 white paper (typically, the first ever written by a woman), Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia. Sixteen volumes of diaries and about 1,600 letters to her parents, transcribed and posted on the web by the University of Newcastle library ( www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk) are a must-read at the Pentagon, less for their portrait of an oriental culture in its last phase as for their perilous mingling of political insight and blind elation.

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was born on July 14 1868 in Washington, Co Durham. Her family were ironmasters on a grand scale, with progressive attitudes. In 1886, Bell went up to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she was the first woman to win a first-class degree in modern history. Unwanted in the marriage market - too "Oxfordy" a manner, it was said - she taught herself Persian and travelled to Iran in 1892, where her uncle was British ambassador.

She wrote her first travel book, Persian Pictures, and translated the libertine Persian poet Hafez into Yellow Book verse. She also fell in love with an impecunious British diplomat, who was rejected by her father. Though she was to form passionate attachments all her life, she kept them under rigid formal restraint.

The next decade she killed in two round-the-world journeys and in the Alps, where she gained renown for surviving 53 hours on a rope on the unclimbed north-east face of the Finsteraarhorn, when her expedition was caught in a blizzard in the summer of 1902. She had begun to learn Arabic in Jerusalem in 1897, wrote about Syria, and taught herself archaeology. She immersed herself in tribal politics and in 1914 made a dangerous journey to Hail, a town in northern Arabia that was the headquarters of a bitter enemy of Britain's new ally, the founder of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud.

With the outbreak of war that summer, and the entry of the Ottoman empire on the side of Germany that November, Bell was swept up with TE Lawrence and other archaeologist-spies into an intelligence operation in Cairo, known as the Arab Bureau. In Iraq, an expeditionary force from India had surrendered to the Turks at Kut al-Amara on the lower Tigris in 1916. Bell travelled to Basra, where a new army was assembling. When Baghdad fell to the reinforcements in 1917, she moved up to the capital and was eventually appointed Cox's oriental secretary, responsible for relations with the Arab population.

British policy in the Middle East was in utter confusion. While the government of India wanted a new imperial possession at the head of the Persian Gulf, London had made extravagant promises of freedom to persuade the Arabs to rise up against the Turks. The compromise, which was bitterly resented in Iraq, was the so-called League of Nations Mandate, granted to Britain in 1920.

Senior Indian officials, such as the formidable AT Wilson, argued that the religious and tribal divisions in Iraq would for ever undermine an Iraqi state. Bell believed passionately in Arab independence and persuaded London that Iraq had enough able men at least to provide an administrative facade. But she had two blind spots. She always overestimated the popularity of Cox and herself, and she underestimated the force of religion in Iraqi affairs and the Shia clergy "sitting in an atmosphere which reeks of antiquity and is so thick with the dust of ages that you can't see through it - nor can they".

On June 27 1920, she was writing: "In this flux, there is no doubt they are turning to us." In fact, the Shia tribes of the entire middle Euphrates rose in revolt the next month, and hundreds of British soldiers and as many as 8,000 Iraqis were killed before it could be suppressed. The next spring, Winston Churchill called a conference in Cairo, where Bell - the only woman among the delegates - had her way. The Hashemite Prince Faisal, a protege of TE Lawrence who had been ousted by the French in Syria, was acclaimed King of Iraq in a referendum that would not have shamed the Ba'ath. The "yes" vote was 96%. In place of the mandate, an Anglo-Iraqi treaty was railroaded through the Iraqi parliament.

Bell was carried away. "I'll never engage in creating kings again; it's too great a strain," she wrote with uncharacteristic vanity. She fell prey to Iraqi flattery and was given the nickname Khatun, which means fine lady or gentlewoman. "As we rode back through the gardens of the Karradah suburb," she told her father on September 11 1921, "where all the people know me and salute me as I pass, Nuri [Said] said, 'One of the reasons you stand out so is because you're a woman. There's only one Khatun... For a hundred years they'll talk of the Khatun riding by.' I think they very likely will."

Yet she could also attend a display of the force being deployed by the RAF on the Kurds around Sulaimaniya: "It was even more remarkable than the one we saw last year at the Air Force show because it was much more real. They had made an imaginary village about a quarter of a mile from where we sat on the Diala dyke and the two first bombs dropped from 3,000ft, went straight into the middle of it and set it alight. It was wonderful and horrible. Then they dropped bombs all round it, as if to catch the fugitives and finally fire bombs which even in the brightest sunlight made flares of bright flame in the desert. They burn through metal and water won't extinguish them. At the end the armoured cars went out to round up the fugitives with machine guns."

Bell was never liked, either in London or New Delhi, and when Cox left Baghdad in 1923, she lost her bureaucratic protector. She devoted more of her time to her old love, archaeology, and established the Baghdad Archaeological Museum which, remarkably, has survived. Her letters home were more and more dominated by illness and depression. On Monday July 12 1926, quite suddenly, Gertrude Bell died.

The official story was that years of gruelling work in the 49C (120F) heat of the Baghdad summer had proved too much for "her slender stock of physical energy". In fact, she took an overdose of sleeping pills, by accident or by intention. She is buried in Baghdad.

Thanks to crude oil, found in commercial quantities at Kirkuk in 1927, the little Iraqi monarchy survived Turkish intrigue, Saudi aggression and repeated uprisings, the worst in 1941 when pro-German officers drove the king and Nuri Said, the prime minister, into exile. But the collapse of British power and prestige at Suez in 1956 marked the end of the road. Faisal II and the royal family were murdered in a republican coup d'etat on July 14 1958.

The Iraq of Gertrude Bell had lasted 37 years. The Ba'ath finally seized power in 1968, built a prosperous despotism in the 1970s but destroyed itself and the country in hopeless military adventures in Iran in the 1980s and Kuwait in 1990. As of yesterday, Ba'athist Iraq had lasted 35 years.
Bell's letters home
Whenever there was snow we sank in it up to the waist... I nearly took a straight cut on to the glacier, for I slipped on a bit of iced rock into a snow gully till the rope fortunately caught me. We all cut our hands over that incident, but it was otherwise the most comfortable part of the descent.
The Alps, 18 July 1902

Such an arrival! Sir Percy made me most welcome and said a house had been allotted to me... a tiny, stifling box of a place in a dirty little bazaar. Fortunately, I had not parted from my bed and bath. These I set up and further unpacked one of my boxes which had been dropped into the Tigris and hung out all the things to dry on the railing of the court.
Baghdad, April 20 1917

I don't think I shall ever be able to detach myself permanently from the fortunes of this country.... it's a wonderful thing to feel the affection and confidence of a whole people round you. But oh to be at the end of the war and to have a free hand!
Baghdad, May 26 1917

Until quite recently I've been wholly cut off from [the Shias] because their tenets forbid them to look upon an unveiled woman and my tenets don't permit me to veil... Nor is it any good trying to make friends through the women - if they were allowed to see me they would veil before me as if I were a man. So you see I appear to be too female for one sex and too male for the other.
Baghdad, March 14 1920

Have I ever told you what the river is like on a hot summer night? At dusk the mist hangs in long white bands over the water; the twilight fades and the lights of the town shine out on either bank, with the river, dark and smooth and full of mysterious reflections, like a road of triumph through the midst.
Baghdad, September 11 1921

· James Buchan has reported from the Middle East since the 70s.
Topics

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In British diplomatic group photographs of the early 20th-century Middle East, amid the plumes and uniforms and the calm paraphernalia of an empire going to hell in a bucket, there is often a solitary female. The woman is slim, with a head of luxuriant hair, and neatly dressed in billowing muslins or in the pencil silhouette and cloche hats of jazz-age Baghdad.

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Once more we are confronted with the old question: What is it that turns certain specimens of the most insular people into natural internationalists? Bell was born into a family of ironmasters in the north of England, liberal and free-trade in their politics, and though the family firm had its vicissitudes, she never had to be concerned about money. Her life pre-1914 (the war is the only watershed that matters in considering her generation) was spent partly in doing things young girls don't normally do, such as Alpine mountaineering and desert archaeology, and partly in adopting causes one might not expect, such as that of the Anti-Suffrage League. As it happened, the First World War involved so many women on the "home front" that it made the post-1918 extension of the franchise almost automatic. The war also forced Bell to realize that she would probably never lose her virginity, which she simultaneously wanted, and dreaded, to be rid of. Her beau ideal lay in a shallow grave on the Dardanelles: She had missed her opportunity and wouldn't settle for a lesser lover. It's usually men who volunteer to go off on a desert mission at this point, but by late 1915 Gertrude was in Cairo as the first woman officer (known as "Major Miss Bell") ever to be employed by British military intelligence.

She was given this distinction be-cause her extraordinary prewar travels and researches in Arabia Deserta had suddenly acquired strategic importance. In the film version of The English Patient, some British soldiers are scrutinizing a map when one asks, "But can we get through those mountains?" Another replies, "The Bell maps show a way," to which the response comes, "Let's hope he was right." This is a pardonable mistake, perhaps, because even now it is extraordinary to read of the solitary woman who explored and charted a great swath of Arabia, from remotest Syria to the waters of the Persian Gulf, just when Wilhelmine Germany was planning a Berlin-to-Baghdad railway. John Buchan and Erskine Childers both wrote important fiction about the impending clash of civilizations, but if anyone's work should have been titled The Riddle of the Sands, it is Gertrude Bell's.

Reading about Bell, one is struck not just by her ability to master the Arabic language and to revere and appreciate the history and culture of the Arabs, but by her political acuity. Where others saw only squabbles between nomads, she was able to discern the emergence of two great rival forces-the Wahabbis of Ibn Saud and the Hashemites of Faisal-and she stored away the knowledge for future reference. Georgina Howell occasionally overdoes the speculative and the fanciful, writing "she must have" when she lacks precise information, but she also considers questions other narratives tend to skip, such as, what does an Englishwoman in the desert, surrounded by inquisitive and hostile Turks, do when it is imperative that she relieve herself? (The answer: Take care to have a stout Arab servant who will interpose his body, then reward and nurture him for the rest of his life.) The title of the book may seem exorbitant in its flattery-and depressing in its echo of poor, mad Lady Hester Stanhope-but Bell's bearing was such that many of the desert dwellers truly believed a queen had come to visit them.

Bell's own more pragmatic search was for a credible king. Mesopotamia-or the former Ottoman vilayets of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul-had rid itself of the Turks by 1918, more as a consequence of the arrival of British and Indian troops than as a result of local efforts. The new colonial authorities borrowed a term- Al Iraq, or "the Iraq," from the verb meaning "to be deeply rooted"-that Arabs had formerly used to describe the southern portion of the territory. Much else about their rule was provisional and improvised. Bell saw the truth of a Baghdad newspaper's observation that London had promised an Arab government with British advisers, but had imposed a British government with Arab advisers. Her immediate superior, A. T. Wilson, believed in strict British imperial control. The colonial leadership in India, which tended to think of Delhi as the capital through which relations with the Gulf states were maintained, was also staunchly opposed to any sentimental talk of Arab independence. As if to further fragment the jigsaw of difficulties, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration into this milieu, awarding a national home in Palestine to the Zionist movement, and the new Bolshevik regime in Russia had the brilliant idea of publishing the terms of the Sykes-Picot agreement, which had fallen into its hands. The disclosure of this covert wartime pact between czarist Russia and the British and French empires to carve up the region had the effect of hugely increasing Arab suspicion of British intentions. It also had the effect of spurring President Wilson to issue his 14 Points, which proposed a grant of self-determination to all colonial subjects. But at the subsequent Paris peace talks, the Arabs and the Kurds, along with the Armenians, were to be the orphans of this process. Even the imperialist A. T. Wilson found himself sympathizing with Bell at that dismal conclave:

The very existence of a Shi'ah majority in Iraq was blandly denied as a figment of my imagination by one "expert" with an international reputation, and Miss Bell and I found it impossible to convince either the Military or the Foreign Office Delegations that Kurds in the Mosul vilayet were numerous and likely to be troublesome, [or] that Ibn Saud was a power seriously to be reckoned with.

These are not the only echoes that come resounding down the years. Official British policy hoped to please all parties and square all circles, with just a hint of traditional divide-and-rule. Bell believed that a state could be created on the foundation of mutual respect, and she was rather partial to the Kurds and the Shia. She was also very critical of the Zionist idea, which she thought could only increase Arab antipathy and endanger the large Jewish community in Baghdad. As to the prejudices of Sir Mark Sykes, co-author of the secret deal with France and Russia, she had acquired an early warning. They had met in Haifa as early as 1905, where he had appalled her with his talk of Arabs as "animals" who were "cowardly," "diseased," and "idle." She had also been several steps ahead of him on an expedition to the Druze fastnesses of Lebanon and Syria, and he always attributed her head start to foul play. As he complained fairly comprehensively in a letter to his wife: "Confound the silly chattering windbag of conceited, gushing, flat-chested, man-woman, globe-trotting, rump-wagging, blethering ass!" There seems to have been a hint of fascination in the midst of this disgust. If so, it would have fit with the general predilections of the British, who were fixated on androgyny in the most alarming way. (Their slang word for Arabs was Frocks, a means of feminizing the colonial subject that was not quite congruent with the manly skills they were otherwise demanding from the desert warriors.)

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Once more we are confronted with the old question: What is it that turns certain specimens of the most insular people into natural internationalists? Bell was born into a family of ironmasters in the north of England, liberal and free-trade in their politics, and though the family firm had its vicissitudes, she never had to be concerned about money.

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Christopher Columbus and the New World Part 1: To the Ends of the Earth

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Christopher Columbus discovered the New World for Europe. Sadly, he died thinking he had reached Asia. Find out more about this historic explorer.

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Gertrude Bell followed where her curiosity led in ways no woman had before. She broke the ultimate glass ceiling by becoming a friend and confidant to numerous sheiks in Mesopotamia, with enough influence to be considered one of the founders of the country of Iraq. The literal heights she scaled and emotional low she felt bookmarked her remarkable professional life as someone who intimately understood that home is where your heart is.

Bell had an upper class upbringing near Newcastle, England. Her father, Sir Hugh Bell, inherited a fortune from the Bell Brothers Ironworks, but education was a priority, and he studied in Edinburgh, at the Sorbonne and in Germany. He married Mary Shield, but she died three weeks after Bell's younger brother, Maurice, was born. Sir Hugh was devoted to his children, but he was lonely and knew the children needed a mother. He married Florence Olliffe who was easily integrated into the family.

Bell's commanding, adventuresome spirit manifested itself early on, and she took it out on her little brother. One time when she led the terrified boy along the edge of the greenhouse roof, she crossed handily but he slipped and fell, and it was his turn to break through the glass ceiling.

Formal elementary education was traditionally reserved for boys, so while her brother was at boarding school, Bell spent lonely days devouring books from the family library. When she was 16, she was sent to Queen's College in London and excelled in every class except scripture, declaring herself an atheist because she did not believe a word of the Bible. Ironically, as an adult she would carve out a life for herself in the cradle of the world's three most important religions.

She matriculated at Oxford University, and Bell's confidence and intellect had prepared her for the rigors of such a demanding education. During her oral final exam, when the professor, a distinguished historian, asked a question about Charles I, Bell had the audacity to say that she held a different opinion of the monarch. Then, when another professor asked about a German town that was on the left bank of the Rhine, Bell casually contradicted him before answering, saying that she was positive town was on the right bank because she had been there. Her assertiveness did not blight her evaluation, and she set her first record as a woman by becoming the first female student to receive the highest grade possible in Modern History.

Bell came out as a debutante in London and was presented to Queen Victoria. But if the goal of the formal debut was to find a husband, no one suitable presented himself. Without romantic prospects or many career options, she jumped at the opportunity to go with her aunt and uncle to Persia. Sir Frank Lascelles was the British ambassador to Tehran. Six months before leaving, Bell started learning Persian and was able to understand the locals when she arrived in June 1892.

This was the beginning of two great love affairs. First, she was totally captivated by the people and culture of Persia, her introduction to the Middle East. Second, she was smitten by the British legation secretary, Hon. Henry Cadogan. Finally she had found someone to give her heart to and who returned her affections, and they got engaged. When her parents heard of the impending nuptials, they didn't approve because Cadogan didn't earn enough money in foreign service to support their daughter well enough, and he was a gambler. Bell was heartbroken, but she obeyed her parents and returned to England. One year later Cadogan died of pneumonia.

During the ensuing years, Bell studied Persian and Arabic. Ultimately she would become fluent in both languages as well as German, French and Italian. She continued to travel, following her personal philosophy of the pursuit of personal happiness coupled with the moral responsibility for the welfare of others. She became proficient in horseback riding, hunting, dancing, shooting, fishing, gardening and mountain climbing.

AIMING FOR THE TOP In 1899 Bell made her first major ascent, climbing to the top of the Meije in the French Alps, over 13,000 feet. There were no proper clothes for female climbers then, so Bell took off her skirt when she and her guides roped up together and continued in her underclothes until they descended back to the glacier. After more hair-raising, confidence-building ascents, Bell decided to be the first person to climb all the peaks of the Engelhörner range in the Swiss Alps. She accomplished her goal during two weeks in 1901 wearing a blue climbing suit with pants, although she always changed back into her skirt at base camp. Of the nine peaks, she was the first person to summit seven of them. One mountain top was named after her, Gertrudspitze.

After her record-breaking mountain climbing adventures in Europe, Bell headed east to a warmer clime. When she was 31 years old she went to Jerusalem at the invitation of friends. Her days were filled with language lessons (Arabic, Hebrew and Turkish), horseback riding and socializing. Bell rode "astride" the horse for the first time, and the sisters at the local convent stitched a long, split skirt so she could still be ladylike.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE JOURNEY From Jerusalem, Bell took extensive journeys into the desert on horseback accompanied only by cooks, muleteers and her guide, all local men. During her first expedition she painfully learned the need to protect herself from the severe desert environment. From then on, she wore the traditional keffiyeh (scarf) over her hat and around her face and a lightweight veil with eye holes. She covered her feet with cloth so the sun wouldn't scorch them through her boots, and she made a muslin sleeping bag to protect against sand fleas while camping at night. To help pass the time while crossing the vast landscape, Bell learned how to read and nap on horseback.

In addition to learning survival techniques for traversing the desert, Bell had to learn the protocol of presenting herself to the sheiks of the tribes as she passed through their territories. Her knowledge of history and languages and the fact that she was a woman traveling alone impressed and endeared her to most of the sheiks. Because of the style in which Bell traveled, her small entourage became a substantial caravan. She earned the respect of the local rulers, and they referred to her as Queen. In camp she always had two tents for herself, one that was erected immediately with a writing table and comfortable chair. The other had her convertible bed and a bath, which was prepared for her as soon as a fire was built and hot water was available. In her trunks she packed clothes for every occasion. When she was in a city she had evening dresses and fur coats. She carried linen skirts, sweaters, scarves, boots, hats veils, parasols, lavender soap, hair brushes, Egyptian cigarettes in a silver case, insect powder, maps, books, and blankets. For dining she had a Wedgewood dinner service, crystal glasses, linen tablecloths and silver candlesticks. She had binoculars and guns to give as gifts to the important sheiks, and she carried her own weapons, cameras and film hidden under her petticoats.

Bell's curiosity about the Middle East went way beyond tourism. She took courses in archaeology and cartography, and she was an accomplished photographer. It became her mission to document ancient ruins and the current landscape, and she published numerous books of her work and experiences which, in many cases, became the definitive reference for the region and influenced policy decisions.

LOVE AND LOSS Despite a deep affinity for the people and places of the Middle East, Bell's heart and mind were distracted by the growing affections for an Englishman, Major Charles ("Dick") Doughty-Wylie, a decorated war hero. Unfortunately, Dick was married. The pair shared a common view of the world and enjoyed each other's company, but the time they could spend together had many limitations. The couple's correspondence from various foreign lands evolved from conversational to include the passion and angst of distant love.

Bell wanted to serve her country in World War I, so in November 1914, she went to France to work for the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Department. She took the initiative to create a workable system to keep accurate records of the wounded soldiers. Surprisingly, despite her apparent restlessness, she found she loved the desk work.

With his wife in Europe, Doughty-Wylie sent word to Bell that he would be in London for a few days before being deployed to the front lines. Bell jumped at the opportunity to be alone with him. They spent four days together, and this time, there was only one limitation that imposed itself. Bell's Victorian morals would not allow her to consummate the relationship since Doughty-Wylie would never get a divorce.

Bell returned to France, and Doughty-Wylie was deployed to Gallipoli. He was killed heroically in a battle with Turkish troops. Bell had been called back to London to set up a new office for Wounded and Missing. She found out her lover's fate when, at a party, someone casually mentioned what happened in Gallipoli. For the second time in her 47 years she was devastated by losing the love of her life.

A NEW HOME Since Bell had spent almost two years in the Arabian Desert as an explorer, cartographer, photographer and archaeologist and was an expert in the policies and personalities of the region, she was summoned to Cairo, Egypt with the rank of Major. She was the first woman officer in the history of British military intelligence. The British agenda included fighting the Turks to retain access to oil and preventing India from annexing Mesopotamia. Bell's desire was for a unified Arab nation, but she acknowledged that that would be impossible and worked to establish independent Arab states.

Bell moved to Basra and was given the title of Oriental Secretary with status as an Assistant Political Officer. She was instrumental in establishing order in the Basra vilayet (province). In April 1917, Bell was 49 years old, and she moved to Baghdad to continue her work. This would be her permanent home for the rest of her life.

THE BIRTH OF A NATION In Baghdad, Bell became active in nation building. The British occupied Iraq, fighting the Turks for rights to the oil, but mistakes were made, and the occupation was becoming very expensive for Britain.

In 1918, the incoming Judicial Officer, Sir Edgar Bonham-Carter, after conferencing with Bell, took the first steps toward creating an independent nation by setting Arabic as the official legal language of Iraq and establishing a new court system for civil and Sharia law in an effort to appease Sunnis and Shia. Five new schools for girls were opened with female faculty.

Eventually boundaries were agreed upon to divide Mesopotamia into individual countries, and Bell and her colleagues lobbied to have Faisal ibn Hussain, a direct descendent of the Prophet Muhammad and son of Sharif Hussain ibn Ali, installed as the first ruler of the self-governed new Iraq. Faisal officially became king in 1921, and Bell's dreams of Arab independence were realized.

Bell knew Faisal personally, and he enjoyed her company and relied on her as a confidant in political matters. He commissioned her to help design the first flag and his personal standard. Because of Bell's extensive archaeological expertise, Faisal appointed her Director of Antiquities. Her first duty was to write antiquities laws that would balance the rights of the host nation and excavators. Bell established the Baghdad Museum, maintaining that Iraq had the right to own its past.* The principal wing of the museum was named after her. Bell continued to go on many archaeological digs, and she won a coin toss for a Semitic statuette from 2800 BC.

LEAVING GRACEFULLY When Bell was 55 years old, she had a third love interest, but this relationship never matured beyond a friendship. For all her physical activities, she was sick a lot during her life. She was a chain smoker, and she suffered from malaria twice, jaundice and bronchitis. In 1925 Bell went to London for a visit. Her family had lost their fortune and was forced to give up their mansion, which was demolished. Bell's doctor advised her not to return to the oppressive climate of the Iraqi summer, but Baghdad was her home, and she could not stay away. When she returned she contracted pleurisy.

With her ill health, financial troubles, no husband and reduced political responsibility, Bell became depressed. On July 11, 1926 she came home exhausted from the heat after a swimming party. She told her maid to wake her up at six am and went to bed early. Her maid dutifully checked in on Bell after a couple of hours and found a suspicious bottle of pills on the bed stand. Bell died in the early hours of July 12 of an overdose, two days before her 58 th birthday.

The British government duly honored Bell for her work. In October 1917 Bell was made a Commander of the new Order of the British Empire, and five months later she received the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. When she died, King George V sent his personal condolences to Bell's parents.
* This is the same as the National Museum of Iraq that was looted during the war in 2003.
QUESTION: Do you agree with the saying, "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?" Why?

©2011 Debbie Foulkes All Rights Reserved

Howell, Georgina, Gertrude Bell Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.

Wallach, Janet, Desert Queen The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia. New York: Nan A. Talese, 1996.

Winstone, H.V.F., Gertrude Bell. New York: Quartet Books Inc., 1978.

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GERTRUDE BELL (1868 - 1926) Explorer, Instrumental in Founding Iraq

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Gertrude Bell followed where her curiosity led in ways no woman had before. She broke the ultimate glass ceiling by becoming a friend and confidant to numerous sheiks in Mesopotamia, with enough influence to be considered one of the founders of the country of Iraq. The literal heights she scaled and emotional low she felt...

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Gertrude Bell was a British writer, archaeologist and political officer best known for helping to establish modern Iraq after World War I.

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Who Was Vasco Da Gama

Explorer Vasco da Gama was born in Sines, Portugal, around 1460. In 1497, he was commissioned by the Portuguese king to find a maritime route to the East. His success in doing so proved to be one of the more instrumental moments in the history of navigation. He subsequently made two other voyages to India, and was appointed as Portuguese viceroy in India in 1524.

Early Years

Explorer Vasco da Gama was born into a noble family around 1460 in Sines, Portugal. Little is known about his upbringing except that he was the third son of Estêvão da Gama, who was commander of the fortress in Sines in the southwestern pocket of Portugal. When he was old enough, young Vasco da Gama joined the navy, where was taught how to navigate.

Known as a tough and fearless navigator, da Gama solidified his reputation as a reputable sailor when, in 1492, King John II of Portugal dispatched him to the south of Lisbon and then to the Algarve region of the country, to seize French ships as an act of vengeance against the French government for disrupting Portuguese shipping.

Following da Gama's completion of King John II's orders, in 1495, King Manuel took the throne, and the country revived its earlier mission to find a direct trade route to India. By this time, Portugal had established itself as one of the most powerful maritime countries in Europe.

Much of that was due to Henry the Navigator, who, at his base in the southern region of the country, had brought together a team of knowledgeable mapmakers, geographers and navigators. He dispatched ships to explore the western coast of Africa to expand Portugal's trade influence. He also believed that he could find and form an alliance with Prester John, who ruled over a Christian empire somewhere in Africa. Henry the Navigator never did locate Prester John, but his impact on Portuguese trade along Africa's east coast during his 40 years of explorative work was undeniable. Still, for all his work, the southern portion of Africa-what lay east-remained shrouded in mystery.

In 1487, an important breakthrough was made when Bartolomeu Dias discovered the southern tip of Africa and rounded the Cape of Good Hope. This journey was significant; it proved, for the first time, that the Atlantic and Indian oceans were connected. The trip, in turn, sparked a renewed interest in seeking out a trade route to India.

By the late 1490s, however, King Manuel wasn't just thinking about commercial opportunities as he set his sights on the East. In fact, his impetus for finding a route was driven less by a desire to secure for more lucrative trading grounds for his country, and more by a quest to conquer Islam and establish himself as the king of Jerusalem.

First Voyage

Historians know little about why exactly da Gama, still an inexperienced explorer, was chosen to lead the expedition to India in 1497. On July 8 of that year, he captained a team of four vessels, including his flagship, the 200-ton St. Gabriel, to find a sailing route to India and the East.

To embark on the journey, da Gama pointed his ships south, taking advantage of the prevailing winds along the coast of Africa. His choice of direction was also a bit of a rebuke to Christopher Columbus, who had believed he'd found a route to India by sailing east.

Following several months of sailing, he rounded the Cape of Good Hope and began making his way up the eastern coast of Africa, toward the uncharted waters of the Indian Ocean. By January, as the fleet neared what is now Mozambique, many of da Gama's crewmembers were sick with scurvy, forcing the expedition to anchor for rest and repairs for nearly one month.

In early March of 1498, da Gama and his crew dropped their anchors in the port of Mozambique, a Muslim city-state that sat on the outskirts of the east coast of Africa and was dominated by Muslim traders. Here, da Gama was turned back by the ruling sultan, who felt offended by the explorer's modest gifts.

By early April, the fleet reached what is now Kenya, before setting sail on a 23-day run that would take them across the Indian Ocean. They reached Calicut, India, on May 20. But da Gama's own ignorance of the region, as well as his presumption that the residents were Christians, led to some confusion. The residents of Calicut were actually Hindu, a fact that was lost on da Gama and his crew, as they had not heard of the religion.

Still, the local Hindu ruler welcomed da Gama and his men, at first, and the crew ended up staying in Calicut for three months. Not everyone embraced their presence, especially Muslim traders who clearly had no intention of giving up their trading grounds to Christian visitors. Eventually, da Gama and his crew were forced to barter on the waterfront in order to secure enough goods for the passage home. In August of 1498, da Gama and his men took to the seas again, beginning their journey back to Portugal.

Da Gama's timing could not have been worse; his departure coincided with the start of a monsoon. By early 1499, several crewmembers had died of scurvy and in an effort to economize his fleet, da Gama ordered one of his ships to be burned. The first ship in the fleet didn't reach Portugal until July 10, nearly a full year after they'd left India.

In all, da Gama's first journey covered nearly 24,000 miles in close to two years, and only 54 of the crew's original 170 members survived.

Second Voyage

When da Gama returned to Lisbon, he was greeted as a hero. In an effort to secure the trade route with India and usurp Muslim traders, Portugal dispatched another team of vessels, headed by Pedro Álvares Cabral. The crew reached India in just six months, and the voyage included a firefight with Muslim merchants, where Cabral's crew killed 600 men on Muslim cargo vessels. More important for his home country, Cabral established the first Portuguese trading post in India.

In 1502, Vasco da Gama helmed another journey to India that included 20 ships. Ten of the ships were directly under his command, with his uncle and nephew helming the others. In the wake of Cabral's success and battles, the king charged da Gama to further secure Portugal's dominance in the region.

To do so, da Gama embarked on one of the most gruesome massacres of the exploration age. He and his crew terrorized Muslim ports up and down the African east coast, and at one point, set ablaze a Muslim ship returning from Mecca, killing the several hundreds of people (including women and children) who were on board. Next, the crew moved to Calicut, where they wrecked the city's trade port and killed 38 hostages. From there, they moved to the city of Cochin, a city south of Calicut, where da Gama formed an alliance with the local ruler.

Finally, on February 20, 1503, da Gama and his crew began to make their way home. They reached Portugal on October 11 of that year.

Later Years

Little was recorded about da Gama's return home and the reception that followed, though it has been speculated that the explorer felt miffed at the recognition and compensation for his exploits.

Married at this time, and the father of six sons, da Gama settled into retirement and family life. He maintained contact with King Manuel, advising him on Indian matters, and was named count of Vidigueira in 1519. Late in life, after the death of King Manuel, da Gama was asked to return to India, in an effort to contend with the growing corruption from Portuguese officials in the country. In 1524, King John III named da Gama Portuguese viceroy in India.

That same year, da Gama died in Cochin-the result, it has been speculated, from possibly overworking himself. His body was sailed back to Portugal, and buried there, in 1538.

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Explorer Vasco da Gama was born in Sines, Portugal, around 1460. In 1497, he was commissioned by the Portuguese king to find a maritime route to the East. His success in doing so proved to be one of the more instrumental moments in the history of navigation.

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vasco da gama portugal africa portuguese portugese explorer explorer explorer explorers  k-12

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Vasco da Gama: Explorer - EnchantedLearning.com

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Vasco da Gama: Explorer. Vasco da Gama (1460-1524) was a Portuguese explorer who found a route from Portugal to the East.

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Kids learn about the biography and life of explorer Vasco da Gama. The first to sail from Europe to Asia around Africa.

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Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 to a wealthy Portuguese family in Sines, Portugal. Vasco's father was also an explorer and was supposed to make the epic journey from Portugal to India that would eventually make his son famous. He died, however, before he could successfully complete the journey. In the late 1400s, Portugal was desperately trying to find a sea route to Asia so they could obtain spices for cheap prices. Explorers such as Bartholomeu Dias had made some progress in making the journey, but none had been able to sail around the southern tip of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope (where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans met) and into the Indian Ocean.

Sailing to India

In 1497, Portuguese King Manuel I financed a voyage led by Vasco da Gama. Many, however, still believed the trip to be impossible because they did not think the Atlantic Ocean connected with the Indian Ocean. Da Gama believed it was possible and left Lisbon, Portugal, on July 8, 1497, with four ships full of criminals and set sail on the Atlantic. After five months on the Atlantic, da Gama and his crew successfully sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean on November 22. After making several stops along ports in the eastern African nations of Kenya, Mozambique, and others, and after struggling with Muslim traders in the Indian Ocean who did not take kindly to interference with their trade routes, da Gama reached Calicut, India, on May 20, 1498.

Back to Portugal

In India, da Gama traded extensively for Asian products and spices. Although he was initially well received in India, he eventually wore out his welcome. Da Gama left India in August of 1498, after he was told to pay a heavy tax and to leave the goods he traded for. Da Gama refused to leave the goods and only left India after taking Indian hostages. By the time da Gama returned to Lisbon in 1499, many of his crew members had died of scurvy (a disease caused by a lack of vitamin C), and he had become a hero. King Manuel I made him an admiral.

The Tyrant

In 1502, King Manuel sent da Gama back to India. This time, however, da Gama came with 20 armed ships to prevent problems with Muslim traders. In one case, da Gama ordered the massacre of a Muslim vessel with 380 people on board. When he reached India, he brutally murdered many Muslims to demonstrate his power and bombarded Calicut to force the Portuguese will on Asian trading markets. Da Gama's conquests paved the way for future conquests in Asia.

Da Gama returned to Portugal in 1503. He died in India in 1524 from an illness.

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Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 to a wealthy Portuguese family in Sines, Portugal. Vasco's father was also an explorer and was supposed to make the epic journey from Portugal to India that would eventually make his son famous. He died, however, before he could successfully complete the journey.

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Francisco Pizarro

A few years after Cortes conquered the Aztec Empire, another explorer named Francisco Pizarro discovered another wealthy empire in Peru known as the Inca Empire.

Pizarro was able to capture the Incan King, Atahualpa, and hold him ransom. After the Incas paid Pizarro a ransom for the release of their leader, Pizarro had Atahualpa put to death, along with other top leaders in the Incan government. The result was that the Incan Empire also fell.

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Francisco Pizarro A few years after Cortes conquered the Aztec Empire, another explorer named Francisco Pizarro discovered another wealthy empire in Peru known as the Inca Empire. Pizarro was able to capture the Incan King, Atahualpa, and hold him ransom. After the Incas paid Pizarro a ransom for the release of their leader, ...

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francisco pizarro spanish conquistador peru explorer: explore  explorer explorers  k-12

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Francisco Pizarro: Explorer. Francisco Pizarro (1478-1541) was a Spanish conquistador who traveled through much of the Pacific coast of America along Peru.

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Francisco Pizarro was born in Trujillo, Cáceres, Spain (then in the Crown of Castile) in modern-day Extremadura, Spain. He was the illegitimate son of infantry colonel Gonzalo Pizarro (1446-1522) and Francisca González, a woman of poor means. His date of birth is uncertain, but it is believed to be sometime in the 1470s, probably 1474.

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National Geographic: Stories of Animals, Nature, and Culture

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Explore National Geographic. A world leader in geography, cartography and exploration.

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Christopher Columbus and the New World Part 1: To the Ends of the Earth

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Christopher Columbus discovered the New World for Europe. Sadly, he died thinking he had reached Asia. Find out more about this historic explorer.

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Christopher Columbus, Italian Cristoforo Colombo, Spanish Cristóbal Colón, (born between August 26 and October 31?, 1451, Genoa [Italy]-died May 20, 1506, Valladolid, Spain), master navigator and admiral whose four transatlantic voyages (1492-93, 1493-96, 1498-1500, and 1502-04) opened the way for European exploration, exploitation, and colonization of the Americas. He has long been called the "discoverer" of the New World, although Vikings such as Leif Eriksson had visited North America five centuries earlier. Columbus made his transatlantic voyages under the sponsorship of Ferdinand II and Isabella I, the Catholic Monarchs of Aragon, Castile, and Leon in Spain. He was at first full of hope and ambition, an ambition partly gratified by his title "Admiral of the Ocean Sea," awarded to him in April 1492, and by the grants enrolled in the Book of Privileges (a record of his titles and claims). However, he died a disappointed man.

The period between the quatercentenary celebrations of Columbus's achievements in 1892-93 and the quincentenary ones of 1992 saw great advances in Columbus scholarship. Numerous books about Columbus appeared in the 1990s, and the insights of archaeologists and anthropologists began to complement those of sailors and historians. This effort gave rise to considerable debate. There was also a major shift in approach and interpretation; the older pro-European understanding gave way to one shaped from the perspective of the inhabitants of the Americas themselves. According to the older understanding, the "discovery" of the Americas was a great triumph, one in which Columbus played the part of hero in accomplishing the four voyages, in being the means of bringing great material profit to Spain and to other European countries, and in opening up the Americas to European settlement. The more recent perspective, however, has concentrated on the destructive side of the European conquest, emphasizing, for example, the disastrous impact of the slave trade and the ravages of imported disease on the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean region and the American continents. The sense of triumph has diminished accordingly, and the view of Columbus as hero has now been replaced, for many, by one of a man deeply flawed. While this second perception rarely doubts Columbus's sincerity or abilities as a navigator, it emphatically removes him from his position of honour. Political activists of all kinds have intervened in the debate, further hindering the reconciliation of these disparate views.

Life

Early career and preparation for the first voyage

Little is known of Columbus's early life. The vast majority of scholars, citing Columbus's testament of 1498 and archival documents from Genoa and Savona, believe that he was born in Genoa to a Christian household; however, it has been claimed that he was a converted Jew or that he was born in Spain, Portugal, or elsewhere. Columbus was the eldest son of Domenico Colombo, a Genoese wool worker and merchant, and Susanna Fontanarossa, his wife. His career as a seaman began effectively in the Portuguese merchant marine. After surviving a shipwreck off Cape Saint Vincent at the southwestern point of Portugal in 1476, he based himself in Lisbon, together with his brother Bartholomew. Both were employed as chart makers, but Columbus was principally a seagoing entrepreneur. In 1477 he sailed to Iceland and Ireland with the merchant marine, and in 1478 he was buying sugar in Madeira as an agent for the Genoese firm of Centurioni. In 1479 he met and married Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, a member of an impoverished noble Portuguese family. Their son, Diego, was born in 1480. Between 1482 and 1485 Columbus traded along the Guinea and Gold coasts of tropical West Africa and made at least one voyage to the Portuguese fortress of São Jorge da Mina (now Elmina, Ghana) there, gaining knowledge of Portuguese navigation and the Atlantic wind systems along the way. Felipa died in 1485, and Columbus took as his mistress Beatriz Enríquez de Harana of Córdoba, by whom he had his second son, Ferdinand (born c. 1488).

Columbus, Christopher; Columbus, Diego; Columbus, Ferdinand Prints and Photographs Division/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital file no. LC-USZ62-106029)

In 1484 Columbus began seeking support for an Atlantic crossing from King John II of Portugal but was denied aid. (Some conspiracy theorists have alleged that Columbus made a secret pact with the monarch, but there is no evidence of this.) By 1486 Columbus was firmly in Spain, asking for patronage from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. After at least two rejections, he at last obtained royal support in January 1492. This was achieved chiefly through the interventions of the Spanish treasurer, Luis de Santángel, and of the Franciscan friars of La Rábida, near Huelva, with whom Columbus had stayed in the summer of 1491. Juan Pérez of La Rábida had been one of the queen's confessors and perhaps procured him the crucial audience.

Christian missionary and anti-Islamic fervour, the power of Castile and Aragon, the fear of Portugal, the lust for gold, the desire for adventure, the hope of conquests, and Europe's genuine need for a reliable supply of herbs and spices for cooking, preserving, and medicine all combined to produce an explosion of energy that launched the first voyage. Columbus had been present at the siege of Granada, which was the last Moorish stronghold to fall to Spain (January 2, 1492), and he was in fact riding back from Granada to La Rábida when he was recalled to the Spanish court and the vital royal audience. Granada's fall had produced euphoria among Spanish Christians and encouraged designs of ultimate triumph over the Islamic world, albeit chiefly, perhaps, by the back way round the globe. A direct assault eastward could prove difficult, because the Ottoman Empire and other Islamic states in the region had been gaining strength at a pace that was threatening the Christian monarchies themselves. The Islamic powers had effectively closed the land routes to the East and made the sea route south from the Red Sea extremely hard to access.

Columbus, Christopher Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-pga-03133)

In the letter that prefaces his journal of the first voyage, the admiral vividly evokes his own hopes and binds them all together with the conquest of the infidel, the victory of Christianity, and the westward route to discovery and Christian alliance:

Columbus, Christopher© iStockphoto/Thinkstock

...and I saw the Moorish king come out of the gates of the city and kiss the royal hands of Your Highnesses...and Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians...took thought to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the said parts of India, to see those princes and peoples and lands...and the manner which should be used to bring about their conversion to our holy faith, and ordained that I should not go by land to the eastward, by which way it was the custom to go, but by way of the west, by which down to this day we do not know certainly that anyone has passed; therefore, having driven out all the Jews from your realms and lordships in the same month of January, Your Highnesses commanded me that, with a sufficient fleet, I should go to the said parts of India, and for this accorded me great rewards and ennobled me so that from that time henceforth I might style myself "Don" and be high admiral of the Ocean Sea and viceroy and perpetual Governor of the islands and continent which I should discover...and that my eldest son should succeed to the same position, and so on from generation to generation forever.

Thus a great number of interests were involved in this adventure, which was, in essence, the attempt to find a route to the rich land of Cathay ( China), to India, and to the fabled gold and spice islands of the East by sailing westward over what was presumed to be open sea. Columbus himself clearly hoped to rise from his humble beginnings in this way, to accumulate riches for his family, and to join the ranks of the nobility of Spain. In a similar manner, but at a more exalted level, the Catholic Monarchs hoped that such an enterprise would gain them greater status among the monarchies of Europe, especially against their main rival, Portugal. Then, in alliance with the papacy (in this case, with the Borgia pope Alexander VI [1492-1503]), they might hope to take the lead in the Christian war against the infidel.

At a more elevated level still, Franciscan brethren were preparing for the eventual end of the world, as they believed was prophesied in the Revelation to John. According to that eschatological vision, Christendom would recapture Jerusalem and install a Christian emperor in the Holy Land as a precondition for the coming and defeat of Antichrist, the Christian conversion of the whole human race, and the Last Judgment. Franciscans and others hoped that Columbus's westward project would help to finance a Crusade to the Holy Land that might even be reinforced by, or coordinated with, offensives from the legendary ruler Prester John, who was thought to survive with his descendants in the lands to the east of the infidel. The emperor of Cathay-whom Europeans referred to as the Great Khan of the Golden Horde-was himself held to be interested in Christianity, and Columbus carefully carried a letter of friendship addressed to him by the Spanish monarchs. Finally, the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was known to have pressed southward along the coast of West Africa, beyond São Jorge da Mina, in an effort to find an easterly route to Cathay and India by sea. It would never do to allow the Portuguese to find the sea route first.

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Christopher Columbus | Biography, Voyages, & Facts

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Christopher Columbus, Italian Cristoforo Colombo, Spanish Cristóbal Colón, (born between August 26 and October 31?, 1451, Genoa [Italy]-died May 20, 1506, Valladolid, Spain), master navigator and admiral whose four transatlantic voyages (1492-93, 1493-96, 1498-1500, and 1502-04) opened the way for European exploration, exploitation, and colonization of the Americas.

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*Read through the whole process before you  begin to work.

1. First, print out a copy of the  questions and a copy of the template that you will find below.  If your teacher  has already handed you the copies, then you may go on to the next instruction.

2. Next, with a partner, select an  explorer to research.  In all you will need to select five.

3. Once you have selected an explorer,  go to the Resource section and click on the links for that explorer.  The links will take  you to pages where you and your partner will find the information needed to complete the questions.  You may also  use other resources to help you find the information you need.

4. When you have answered all the  questions, review the information with your partner to make sure you have both  written down all the important facts on your question sheets. Transfer all of  your information from your sheet onto your explorer trading card.

5. Next, locate a  picture or pictures of the  explorer.  (You will find pictures on the web sites and in books.)  On the back  side of the card you will paste a picture or several pictures of that explorer so that one side has  a picture/s of the explorer and the other will contain information about him/her.

6. When you have finished filling out  the first explorer's card go back to the Resource section and together with your  partner, select another explorer.  Beginning the process over again (find  information and draw a picture).

7. Continue this process until you fill  in all five of the cards.

8. The final step is to  edit your card to make sure you have not made any writing errors, then add the  finishing touches by changing text colors and font styles. Make sure your cards  are appealing to the eye!  Use your writers checklist!

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Your task is as follows:

Print a copy of the explorer  questions provided below

Using the Internet and other  resources, locate the information required to answer the questions for five of  these explorers: William Dampier, James Cook, Ferdinand Magellan, Jeanne Bare, Vasco daGama, Gertrude Bell, Henry Stanley Morton, Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, David Livingston, Francisco Pizarro, Hernan Cortes The Conquistadors.

Answer the ten questions provided on  the Explorer Question sheet.

Using the trading card template  provided. Use the information you recorded on your question sheet to complete  the information section of your cards.

On the other side of the cards, you  will print and add a photo or drawing of your explorer.

Share your cards with your  classmates.

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The students at American School of Douala have been selected to design a new line of trading cards.  Your job is to create  the first ever Explorer Trading Cards.  These cards will look similar to sports cards or other trading cards you have seen, but they will have facts  about the major explorers of the World.  Using the information that is provided below, material that you have learned in class, and additional sources,  you will select the information that will be printed on the cards.  Good luck!  We look forward to seeing your final products!