# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942) is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks. He is best known for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998. He discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who saved its crew. He leads ocean exploration on E/V Nautilus. Ballard considers his most important discovery to be that of hydrothermal vents.

Robert Ballard grew up in Pacific Beach, San Diego, California to a mother of German heritage and a father of British heritage. He has attributed his early interest in underwater exploration to watching (Ballard is dyslexic) the Disney adaptation of Jules Verne's 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, living by the ocean in San Diego, and his fascination with the groundbreaking expeditions of the bathyscaphe Trieste.

Ballard began working for Andreas Rechnitzer's Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation in 1962 when his father, Chet, the chief engineer at North American Aviation's Minuteman missile program, helped him get a part-time job. At North American, he worked on North American's failed proposal to build the submersible Alvin for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

In 1965, Ballard graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, earning undergraduate degrees in chemistry and geology. While a student in Santa Barbara, California, he joined Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and also completed the US Army's ROTC program, giving him an Army officer's commission in Army Intelligence. His first graduate degree ( MS, 1966) was in geophysics from the University of Hawaii's Institute of Geophysics where he trained porpoises and whales. Subsequently, he returned to Andreas Rechnitzer's Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation.

Ballard was working towards a PhD in marine geology at the University of Southern California in 1967 when he was called to active duty. Upon his request, he was transferred from the Army into the US Navy as an oceanographer. The Navy assigned him as a liaison between the Office of Naval Research and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

After leaving active duty and entering into the Naval Reserve in 1970, Ballard continued working at Woods Hole persuading organizations and people, mostly scientists, to fund and use Alvin for undersea research. Four years later he received a PhD in marine geology and geophysics at the University of Rhode Island.

Military career

Ballard joined the United States Army in 1965 through the Army's Reserve Officers Training program. He was designated as an intelligence officer and initially received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve. When called to active duty in 1967, he asked to fulfill his obligation in the United States Navy. His request was approved, and he was transferred to the Navy Reserve on the reserve active duty list. After completing his active duty obligation in 1970, he was returned to reserve status, where he remained for much of his military career, being called up only for mandatory training and special assignments. He retired from the Navy as a commander in 1995 after reaching the statutory service limit.

Marine geology

Ballard's first dive in a submersible was in the Ben Franklin (PX-15) in 1969 off the coast of Florida during a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution expedition. In summer 1970, he began a field mapping project of the Gulf of Maine for his doctoral dissertation. It used an air gun that sent sound waves underwater to determine the underlying structure of the ocean floor and the submersible Alvin, which was used to find and recover a sample from the bedrock.

Ballard was geologist diver in Alvin during Project FAMOUS, which explored the median rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in 1974.

During the summer of 1975, Ballard participated in a joint French-American expedition called Phere searching for hydrothermal vents over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, but the expedition did not find any active vents.

On the Galapagos spreading center east of the islands a 1977 exploration by Alvin found deep-sea hydrothermal vents and surrounding biology communities based on chemosynthesis. Ballard was a participating diver.

The 1979 RISE project expedition on the East Pacific Rise west of Mexico at 21°N was aided by deep-towed still camera sleds that were able to take pictures of the ocean floor, making it easier to find hydrothermal vent locations. When Alvin inspected one of the sites the deep-tow located, the scientists observed black "smoke" billowing out of the vents, something not observed at the Galápagos Rift.

Ballard and geophysicist Jean Francheteau went down in Alvin the day after the black smokers were first observed. They were able to take an accurate temperature reading of the active vent (the previous dive's thermometer had melted), and recorded a temperature of 350 °C (623 K; 662 °F; 1,122 °R).

They continued searching for more vents along the East Pacific Rise between 1980 and 1982.

Marine archaeology

While Ballard had been interested in the sea since an early age, his work at Woods Hole and his scuba diving experiences off Massachusetts spurred his interest in shipwrecks and their exploration. His work in the Navy had involved assisting in the development of small, unmanned submersibles that could be tethered to and controlled from a surface ship, and were outfitted with lighting, cameras, and manipulator arms. As early as 1973, he saw this as way of searching for the wreck of the Titanic. In 1977, he led his first expedition, which was unsuccessful.

In summer 1985, Ballard was aboard the French research ship Le Suroît, which was using the side scan sonar SAR to search for the Titanic's wreck. When the French ship was recalled, he transferred onto a ship from Woods Hole, the R/V Knorr. Unbeknownst to some, this trip was financed by the U.S. Navy for secret reconnaissance of the wreckage of two Navy nuclear powered attack submarines, the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher, which sank in the 1960s, and not for the Titanic. Back in 1982, he approached the Navy about his new deep sea underwater robot craft, the Argo, and his search for the Titanic. The Navy was not interested in financing it. However, they were interested in finding out what happened to their missing submarines and ultimately concluded that Argo was their best chance to do so. The Navy agreed it would finance his Titanic search only if he first searched for and investigated the two sunken submarines, and found out the state of their nuclear reactors after being submerged for such a long time, and whether their radioactivity was impacting the environment. He was placed on temporary active duty in the Navy, in charge of finding and investigating the wrecks. After the two missions were completed, time and funding permitting, he was free to use resources to hunt for the Titanic.

After their missions for the Navy, Knorr arrived on site on August 22, 1985, and deployed Argo. When they searched for the two submarines, Ballard and his team discovered that they had imploded from the immense pressure at depth. It littered thousands of pieces of debris all over the ocean floor. Following the large trail of debris led them directly to both and made it significantly easier for them to locate them than if they were to search for the hulls directly. He already knew that the Titanic imploded from pressure as well, much the same way the two submarines did, and concluded that it too must have also left a scattered debris trail. Using that lesson, they had Argo sweep back and forth across the ocean floor looking for the Titanic's debris trail. They took shifts monitoring the video feed from Argo as it searched the ocean floor two miles below.

In the early morning hours of September 1, 1985, observers noted anomalies on the otherwise smooth ocean floor. At first, it was pockmarks, like small craters from impacts. Eventually, debris was sighted as the rest of the team was awakened. Finally, a boiler was sighted, and soon after that, the hull was found.

Ballard's team made a general search of the Titanic's exterior, noting its condition. Most significantly, they confirmed that it had split in two, and that the stern was in far worse shape than the bow. They did not have much time to explore, as others were waiting to take Knorr on other scientific pursuits, but his fame was now assured. He originally planned to keep the exact location a secret to prevent anyone from claiming prizes from it. He considered the site a cemetery, and refused to desecrate it by removing artifacts.

On July 12, 1986, Ballard and his team returned on board Atlantis II to make the first detailed study of the wreck. This time, he brought Alvin. It was accompanied by Jason Junior, a small remotely operated vehicle that could fit through small openings to see into the ship's interior. Although the first dive (taking over two hours) encountered technical problems, subsequent ones were far more successful, and produced a detailed photographic record of the wreck's condition.

In 1988, Ballard published a book, Discovery Of The Titanic: Exploring The Greatest Of All Lost Ships, ISBN: 0446513857 and he later recounted the specifics of the expedition for National Geographic in a video.

The vast majority of the relics retrieved by various groups, not including Ballard, from RMS Titanic were owned by Premier Exhibitions which filed for bankruptcy in 2016. In late August 2018, the groups vying for ownership of the 5,500 relics included one by museums in England and Northern Ireland with assistance from film maker James Cameron and some financial support from National Geographic. Ballard told the news media that he favored this bid since it would ensure that the memorabilia would be permanently displayed in Belfast and in Greenwich. A decision as to the outcome was to be made by a United States district court judge.

Other wrecks

Ballard undertook an even more daunting task when he and his team searched off the coast of France for the German Battleship in 1989, using an ocean-crawling robot. The 15,000 foot deep water in which it sank is 4,000 feet deeper than that where the Titanic sank. He attempted to determine whether it had been sunk by the British or was scuttled by its own crew. Three weeks after the expedition however, personal tragedy struck him when his 21-year-old son, Todd, who had aided him in the search, was killed in a car accident.

Ballard later published a book about the quest, The Discovery of the Bismarck (1990) The discovery was also documented for National Geographic in a 1989 James Cameron video Search for the Battleship Bismarck which indicated that the ship had been damaged by torpedoes and shells from British ships. The actual cause of the sinking, however, was sabotage of the underwater valves by the onboard crew, according to Ballard, who said, "we found a hull that appears whole and relatively undamaged by the descent and impact". Film maker Cameron, however, said that his crew's examination of the wreckage indicated that the Bismarck would have sunk eventually even if it had not been scuttled.

In 1993, Ballard investigated the wreck of RMS Lusitania off the Irish coast. It had been struck by a torpedo, whose explosion was followed by a second, much larger one. The wreck had been depth charged by the Royal Navy several years after the sinking, and had also been damaged by other explorers, making a forensic analysis difficult. He found no evidence of boiler explosion and he speculated the ignition of coal dust inside the ship caused a "massive, uncontrollable [second] explosion".

Others have questioned this hypothesis, some suggesting that the ship had been sabotaged by the British. Ballard found no evidence to support this claim. Some experts have indicated that it was, in fact, boiler explosions that caused the ship to sink so quickly, in a mere 18 minutes.

Ballard published a book about the discovery, Exploring the Lusitania: Probing the Mysteries of the Sinking that Changed History, also titled Robert Ballard's Lusitania in some markets, with co-author Spencer Dunmore ( ISBN: 0785822070).

Battle of Guadalcanal

In 1992, Ballard and his team visited the sites of many wrecks of World War II in the Pacific. Doing so, he discovered the wreck of the IJN Kirishima. His book Lost Ships of Guadalcanal locates and photographs many of the vessels sunk at Ironbottom Sound, the strait between Guadalcanal Island and the Floridas in the Solomon Islands.

On May 19, 1998 Ballard found the wreck of Yorktown, sunk at the Battle of Midway. Found 3 miles (5 km) beneath the surface, it was photographed.

In 2002, the National Geographic Society and Ballard fielded a ship with remote vehicles to the Solomon Islands. They succeeded in finding a torpedo tube and the forward section from the shipwreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 which was rammed in 1943 by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri off Ghizo Island. The visit also brought to light the identity of islanders Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana who had received little recognition for finding the shipwrecked crew after searching for days in their dugout canoe. A TV special and a book were produced, and Ballard spoke at the John F. Kennedy Library in 2005.

Institute for Exploration

In the 1990s Ballard founded the Institute for Exploration, which specializes in deep-sea archaeology and deep-sea geology. It joined forces in 1999 with the Mystic Aquarium located in Mystic, Connecticut. They are a part of the non-profit Sea Research Foundation, Inc.

Center for Ocean Exploration and Archaeological Oceanography

In 2003, Ballard started the Center for Ocean Exploration and Archaeological Oceanography, a research program at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography.

In 1976, Willard Bascom suggested that the deep, anoxic waters of the Black Sea might have preserved ships from antiquity because typical wood-devouring organisms could not survive there. At a depth of 150 m, it contains insufficient oxygen to support most familiar biological life forms.

Originally a land-locked fresh water lake, the Black Sea was flooded with salt water from the Mediterranean Sea during the Holocene. The influx of salt water essentially smothered the fresh water below it because a lack of internal motion and mixing meant that no fresh oxygen reached the deep waters, creating a meromictic body of water. The anoxic environment, which is hostile to many biological organisms that destroy wood in the oxygenated waters, provides an excellent testing site for deep water archaeological survey.

In a series of expeditions, a team of marine archaeologists led by Ballard identified what appeared to be ancient shorelines, freshwater snail shells, and drowned river valleys in roughly 300 feet (100 m) of water off the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey. Radiocarbon dating of freshwater mollusk remains indicated an age of about 7,000 years.

The team discovered three ancient wrecks to the west of the town of Sinop at depths of 100 m. Wreck A and Wreck C probably date to the late Roman period (2nd-4th century A.D.), while Wreck B probably dates to the Byzantine period (5th to 7th century A.D.).

To the east of Sinop, the team discovered a remarkably well-preserved wreck at a 320 m depth, in the Black Sea's deep anoxic waters. The vessel's entire hull and cargo are intact, buried in sediments. Its deck structures are also intact, including a mast rising some 11 m into the water column. Radiocarbon dating of wood from the wreck provides a date of 410-520 A.D. It has been named "Sinop D" by the Ballard team.

In 2000, the team conducted an expedition that focused on the exploration of the sea bed about 15-30 km west of Sinop, and an additional deep-water survey east and north of the peninsula. Their project had several goals. They sought to discover whether human habitation sites could be identified on the ancient submerged landscape, they examined the sea-bed for shipwrecks (where they found Sinop A-D), to test the hypothesis that the anoxic waters below 200 m would protect shipwrecks from the expected biological attacks on organic components, and to seek data about an ancient trade route between Sinop and the Crimea indicated by terrestrial archaeological remains.

Although Sinop served as a primary trade center in the Black Sea, the wrecks were located west of the trade route predicted by the prevalence of Sinopian ceramics on the Crimean peninsula. On wrecks A-C, mounds of distinctive carrot-shaped shipping jars, called amphorae, were found. They were of a style associated with Sinop and retained much of their original stacking pattern on the sea floor. The jars may have carried a variety of archetypal Black Sea products such as olive oil, honey, wine or fish sauce but the contents are presently unknown because no artifacts were recovered from any of these wreck sites in 2000.

The wreck found provided the team with vast information about both the technological changes and trade that occurred in the Black Sea during a period of political, social and economic transition through their study of the ship's construction techniques. Studies show that in Sinop during the Byzantine era, they had developed long-distance trading as early as 4500 BC. Sea-trading on the Black Sea was most intense during the period of late antiquity, between the 2nd and 7th centuries AD. The examination of the four shipwrecks found by Ballard and his team provide the direct evidence for Black Sea maritime trade so well attested by the distribution of ceramics on land.

The video images of Shipwreck A that were taken show a wall of shipping jars standing about 2 m above the seabed. The amphorae highest on the mound had fallen over without displacing those still standing in the rows beneath them, and it is likely that the ship settled upright on the sea-bed, gradually being both buried in and filled with sediment as exposed wood was devoured by the larva or the shipworm.

Shipwreck B also consisted of a large pile of amphorae but several types are visible, as are multiple timbers protruding from within the mound and on it. In addition to the Sinop-styles jars, several amphorae similar to examples excavated on the Yassiada Byzantine shipwreck and dating from the 5th to late 6th century AD are present.

Two discrete and mostly buried piles of carrot-shaped shipping jars comprise shipwreck C. The team's visit to the site was short and was intended primarily to test survey methodology for deep-water procedures.

Shipwreck D provided the team with an unprecedented opportunity to document hull construction during a time of transition. When observing the sonar signature of Shipwreck D, a long, slender upright feature on the seabed, transformed itself into a wooden mast. Elements rarely present on shallower shipwreck sites are beautifully preserved 200 m below the surface. Disappointingly for ship scholars and historians of technology, there are few indications of how the planks of Sinop D are held together. There are no mortise and tenon fastenings, and no sewing. Shipwreck D may be one of the earliest lateen-rigged ships to be studied by archaeologists. The angle of the mast and the lack of fittings on it suggest that a lateen sail is the most likely configuration for such a small vessel.

The Institute for Exploration Black Sea expeditions relied on remote sensing with side-scan sonar in shallow and deep water to identify potential archaeological sites examined by ROVs. The hypothesis that the anoxic waters of the Black Sea would allow extraordinary organic preservation is borne out by the discovery of Sinop D, the 1,500-year-old shipwreck with excellent preservation of features above the sediment layer.

According to a report in New Scientist magazine (May 4, 2002, p. 13), the researchers found an underwater delta south of the Bosporus. There was evidence for a strong flow of fresh water out of the Black Sea in the 8th millennium BC. Ballard's research has contributed to the debate over the Black Sea deluge theory.

Awards and honors

In 1988, he was awarded an honorary degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath.

In 1990, he received the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award.

Kilby International Awards recipient in 1994

In 1995, he was awarded with the Explorers Club Medal of The Explorers Club

In 1996 the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation awarded Ballard its Lone Sailor Award for his naval service and his work on underwater archaeology.

The Caird Medal of the National Maritime Museum in 2002

Asteroid 11277 Ballard, discovered by Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker at Palomar Observatory, was named in his honor in 2002.

The National Humanities Medal for 2003

Other works

In 2004, Ballard was appointed professor of oceanography, and currently serves as Director of the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography, at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography. He was the first speaker to give the Charles and Marie Fish Lecture in Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island in 2002.

Television

Ballard served as the technical consultant on the science fiction series seaQuest DSV during its first season from September 1993 until May 1994. During the closing credits, he would speak about the scientific elements that were present in any given episode and place them in a contemporary context. Although he exited the series in the second season, he was referenced in the third season, with the "Ballard Institute" being named after him.

In 1989, Ballard founded the JASON Project, a distance education program designed to excite and engage middle school students in science and technology. He began the JASON Project in response to the thousands of letters he received from students following his discovery of the wreck of the Titanic.

Ballard has three sons, Todd Allan (1968-1989), Doug, and Ben (b. 1994). Ballard married Marjorie Jacobsen in 1966 and divorced in 1990. He remarried in 1991. Robert Ballard has a daughter with Barbara Earle named Emily who was born in 1997.

In Spanish: Robert Ballard para niños

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Biography >>Explorers for Kids

Roald Amundsen piloting his ship
Source: Lomen Bros.

Occupation: Explorer

Born: July 16, 1872 in Borge, Norway

Died: June 18, 1928 during a rescue attempt

Best known for: First man to visit the South Pole

Biography:

Roald Amundsen (1872 - 1928) was an explorer of the North and South Poles. He led the first expedition to reach the South Pole and was the first person to visit both the North and South Pole.

Where did Roald grow up?

Roald was born in Borge,Norway on July 16, 1872. He grew up in Norway with his three brothers. His father, who was involved with the shipping industry, died when Roald was just 14 years old. Roald had dreamt of becoming an explorer, but his mother wanted him to become a doctor. He followed his mother's wishes until she died when he was 21 years old. Then he left school to pursue his dream of exploring.

Roald became a crewmember on various ships traveling to the Arctic. In 1887 he was first mate on a ship named the Belgica. It became the first expedition to survive the winter on the Arctic. Roald learned valuable lessons of survival during these early trips that would help him later on. One was that fresh seal meat had vitamin C which would help in curing scurvy. Another was to use animal skins rather than wool coats to keep warm.

Northwest Passage

In 1903 Roald commanded his own expedition on his ship the Gjoa. He traveled to the magnetic North Pole and was the first to discover the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This passage had been searched for over many centuries. Roald's ability to navigate and survive this trip was a great accomplishment.

His ship the Gjoa
Photo by Unknown

South Pole

Roald next planned an expedition to reach the North Pole. However, when he heard that Robert Peary claimed to have already reached the North Pole, he made last minute plans and decided to pursue the South Pole. He kept this a secret until the last minute. He was in a race with British explorer Robert Scott to be the first to the South Pole.

On January 14, 1911 Amundsen's ship, the Fram, arrived at the Bay of Whales inAntarctica. They set up camp there and prepared for the trip to the South Pole. Roald made sure that the dogs were well fed. One of the crew, a carpenter named Olav Bjaaland, redesigned the sleds they would use. He lowered the weight from 195 pounds to 50 pounds. This lower weight would be crucial in saving energy during the trip.

Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition
Source: Illustrated London News

They set out to reach the South Pole ten months after arriving on Antarctica on October 20th. There were five men, 52 dogs, and four sleds. At first they traveled quickly, but soon they had to pass over mountains and avoid dangerous crevasses. Finally, after nearly two months of hard traveling, they reached their destination. On December 14, 1911 Roald Amundsen planted the Norwegian Flag at the South Pole.

All five of Amundsen's crew returned safely to base camp, but only 11 dogs made it back alive. The expedition took 99 days and traveled over 1,800 miles.

Amundsen and the Norwegian Flag at the South Pole
Source: National Library of Norway

Robert Scott's British expedition reached the South Pole 35 days after Amundsen. Unfortunately, they did not make it back alive, but were found frozen to death months later.

North Pole

Amundsen still had the goal of reaching theNorth Pole. In 1926 he joined an expedition with Umberto Nobile aboard the airship Norge. They flew over the North Pole in May in what was is considered to be the first undisputed (many people dispute Robert Peary's claim) visit to the North Pole.

Rescue Attempt

Roald died in a plane crash during a rescue attempt on June 18, 1928. He was trying to save some of the crew of one of Nobile's airships that had crashed.

Fun Facts about Roald Amundsen

Amundsen, Nobile, and Lincoln Ellsworth all dropped their country's flags onto the North Pole as they flew over.

At one point he was attacked and nearly killed by a polar bear.

The airship he used to fly to the North Pole in was almost 350 feet long and filled with hydrogen gas.

He named the mountain range he crossed on his way to the South Pole the Queen Maud Mountains, after the queen of Norway.

When he reached the South Pole, he stayed there for three days to rest and get ready for the trip back.

Roald Dahl, who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, was named after Amundsen.

Activities

Take a ten question quiz about this page.

Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

Your browser does not support the audio element.

More Explorers: Works Cited

Biography for Kids >> Explorers for Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the biography and life of explorer Roald Amundsen. First man to the South Pole.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the late 1940s Tharp began working as a research assistant at the Lamont Geological Observatory at Columbia University in New York City. (It is now known as the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.) She met fellow geologist Bruce Heezen there. They worked together closely for the next 30 years. Tharp and Heezen were part of a research project to map the ocean floor. Other scientists had created maps of the ocean floor, but Tharp and Heezen used improved technology to see more details. Women were not allowed on research boats at the time, so Heezen went out on the water and collected the data using sonar (a device that detects what is under the water). The data was then given to Tharp. Using only pens and rulers, she used the data to figure out what was on the ocean floor. Their first map of the North Atlantic Ocean was completed in 1957. Scientists were expecting the ocean floor to be a mostly flat, featureless plain. Tharp's map revealed that the ocean floor was made up of valleys, canyons, and mountains. Tharp and Heezen continued to publish maps of different areas of the ocean floor until 1977, when they published the first map of the entire ocean floor.

As Tharp worked on the map of the Atlantic Ocean in the early 1950s, data revealed a 10,000-mile- (16,000-kilometer-) long ridge (or mountain chain) and what looked like a rift valley. Tharp thought it looked like the valley was where magma would come up from inside Earth, push the sides of the ridge apart, and form new crust. This was evidence that the seafloor was spreading and supported the theory of continental drift. At the time many scientists thought the idea that the continents could move through the ocean floor was ridiculous. When Tharp pointed out the rift valley to Heezen, he said it was just "girl talk." After many months Heezen agreed with her, but only after he discovered earthquake activity along the ridge. The scientific community was slow to accept what Tharp and Heezen had found. Once it was accepted, the discovery was essential to developing the new theory of plate tectonics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Marie Tharp was an American geologist and oceanographer (a scientist who studies the oceans). She helped create an important map of the ocean floor. The map led Tharp to...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Matthew Henson may have been the first person to stand at the North Pole. He reached the Pole as a member of an expedition to the Arctic led by the explorer Robert E. Peary…

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.timeforkids.com/g2/ocean-defender-g2-5-plus/#:~:text=Sylvia%20Earle%20is%20a%20marine,can%20do%20to%20protect%20them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sylvia Earle is a marine biologist. That's someone who studies life in the ocean. Earle is also one of the ocean's biggest defenders. Here, she answers questions about threats to the oceans and what we can do to protect them....

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The British scientist Jane Goodall is known for her research on chimpanzees. She studied the animals for many years in the East African country of Tanzania. Her discoveries changed the way chimpanzees are studied and understood.

Jane Goodall was born on April 3, 1934, in London, England. At a young age she became interested in animals. By age 11 she dreamed of living among Africa's wildlife.

To earn money to travel to Africa, Goodall left school at age 18 and began working. At age 23 she arrived by boat in Kenya. She soon became an assistant to Louis Leakey, a famous scientist.

In 1960 Goodall set up camp on the shores of Tanzania's Lake Tanganyika. She studied chimpanzees close-up in their natural setting. It took months for Goodall to gain the chimps' trust, but her patience paid off.

Through her observations, Goodall changed many ideas about chimpanzees. She saw a chimpanzee make a tool, which it used to get food. Scientists had believed only humans were toolmakers. She also found that chimpanzees eat both meat and plants. Finally, Goodall observed that each chimpanzee had a distinct personality and emotions.

Except for short absences, Goodall remained in Tanzania until 1975. In 1977 she founded the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education, and Conservation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The British scientist Jane Goodall is known for her research on chimpanzees. She studied the animals for many years in the East African country of Tanzania. Her discoveries...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Jean Baptiste Point du Sable (or Point de Sable, Point au Sable, Point Sable, Pointe DuSable) (before 1750 - August 28, 1818) is regarded as the first permanent resident of what later became Chicago, Illinois, and is recognized as the "Founder of Chicago". A school, museum, harbor, park, and bridge have been named in his honor. The site where he settled near the mouth of the Chicago River around the 1780s is identified as a National Historic Landmark, now located in Pioneer Court.

Point du Sable was of African descent, traditionally stated to be Haitian, from the French colony of Saint-Domingue but little else is known of his life prior to the 1770s. During his career, the areas where he settled and traded around the Great Lakes and in the Illinois Country changed hands several times among France, Britain, Spain and the new United States.

Described as handsome and well educated, Point du Sable married a Native American woman, Kitiwaha, and they had two children. In 1779, during the American Revolutionary War, he was living on the site of present-day Michigan City, Indiana, when he was arrested by the British military on suspicion of being an American sympathizer. In the early 1780s he worked for the British lieutenant-governor of Michilimackinac on an estate at what is now the city of St. Clair, Michigan.

Point du Sable is first recorded as living at the mouth of the Chicago River in a trader's journal of early 1790, having settled there sometime earlier. He established an extensive and prosperous trading settlement in what would become the city of Chicago. He sold his Chicago River property in 1800 and moved to St. Charles, now in Missouri, where he was licensed to run a Missouri River ferry. Point du Sable's successful role in developing the Chicago River settlement was little recognized until the mid-20th century. Point du Sable died on August 18, 1818 in St. Charles, Missouri.

Legacy and honors

Founder of Chicago

The French came to the North American mid-continent region in the 17thcentury. Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, during their 1673 Mississippi Valley expedition, though probably not the first Europeans to visit the area, are the first in the written record to have crossed the Chicago Portage and traveled along the Chicago River. Over the following years visits continued, and occasional intermittent posts were established, including those by René LaSalle, Henri Tonti, Pierre Liette and the four-year Mission of the Guardian Angel. Point duSable 1780s establishment is recognized as the first settlement that continued on and ultimately grew to become the city of Chicago. He is therefore widely regarded as the first permanent resident of Chicago and has been given the appellation "Founder of Chicago".

By the 1850s, historians of Chicago recognized Point duSable as the city's earliest non-native permanent resident. For a long time the city did not honor him in the same manner as other pioneers. Point du Sable was generally forgotten in the 19thcentury and instead the Scots-Irish trader John Kinzie, who had bought his property, was often credited for the settlement. A plaque was erected by the city in 1913 at the corner of Kinzie and Pine Streets to commemorate the Kinzie homestead. In the planning stages of the 1933-1934 Century of Progress International Exposition, several African-American groups campaigned for Point duSable to be honored at the fair. At the time, few Chicagoans had even heard of Point duSable, and the fair's organizers presented the 1803 construction of Fort Dearborn as the city's historical beginning. The campaign was successful, and a replica of Point duSable's cabin was presented as part of the "background of the history of Chicago".

In 1965 a plaza called Pioneer Court was built on the site of Point duSable's homestead as part of the construction of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of America building. The Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable Homesite was designated as a National Historic Landmark on 11May 1976, as a site deemed to have "exceptional value to the nation". Pioneer Court is located at what is now 401N. Michigan Avenue in the Michigan-Wacker Historic District. At this site in 2009 the City of Chicago and a private donor, Haitian-born, Lesly Benodin, erected a large bronze bust of Point duSable by Chicago-born sculptor Erik Blome. In October 2010 the Michigan Avenue Bridge was renamed DuSable Bridge in honor of Point duSable. Previously, a small street named DeSaible Street had been named after him. In 2021, Lake Shore Drive in Chicago was renamed in Point du Sable's honor.

Several institutions have been named in honor of Point duSable. DuSable High School opened in Bronzeville, Chicago in 1934. The DuSable campus today houses the Daniel Hale Williams Prep School of Medicine, and the Bronzeville Scholastic Institute. Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, a prominent African-American artist and writer, taught at the school for twenty-three years. She and her husband co-founded the DuSable Museum of African American History, located on Chicago's South Side, which was renamed in honor of Point duSable in 1968. DuSable Harbor is located in the heart of downtown Chicago at the foot of Randolph Street, and DuSable Park is a 3.24-acre (1.31 ha) urban park in Chicago currently awaiting redevelopment. The project was originally announced in 1987 by Mayor Harold Washington. A park is also named after du Sable in St Charles, his other notable place of residence. The US Postal Service has also honored Point duSable with the issue of a Black Heritage Series 22-cent postage stamp on 20February 1987.

Images for kids

Drawing of the former home of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable in Chicago as it appeared in the early 1800s

In Spanish: Jean Baptiste Point DuSable para niños

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Jean Baptiste Point du Sable Facts for Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn Jean Baptiste Point du Sable facts for kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey Facts for Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey facts for kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Harriet Chalmers Adams (October 22, 1875 - July 17, 1937) was an American explorer, writer and photographer. She traveled extensively in South America, Asia and the South Pacific in the early 20th century, and published accounts of her journeys in National Geographic magazine. She lectured frequently on her travels and illustrated her talks with color slides and movies.

Harriet Chalmers Adams in the Gobi Desert

Harriet Chalmers Adams was born in Stockton, California to Alexander Chalmers and Frances Wilkens. As a child, she enjoyed numerous horseback adventures with her father, including a yearlong trip from Oregon to Mexico through the Sierra Nevada Mountains when she was 14.

On October 5, 1899, she married Franklin Pierce Adams, an electrician. He loved to travel as well, so instead of spending their money on buying a house, they lived in a boarding house and traveled with the money they saved.

In 1900, Adams went on her first major expedition, a three-year trip around South America with her husband, during which they visited every country, and traversed the Andes on horseback. The New York Times wrote that she "reached twenty frontiers previously unknown to white women." Adams chose practical clothing for her explorations, typically wearing pants, boots, and a man's shirt. During her travels, she focused on the customs, folklore, and languages of the peoples she visited, and lived among them, sharing their sleeping customs and food.

In a 1910 trip, she retraced the trail of Christopher Columbus's early discoveries in the Americas, and crossed Haiti on horseback. In 1915, Adams was prepared to board the RMS Lusitania in New York to sail to Liverpool when she received word that her father was ill. She travelled back west to see him, but was still on the ship's manifest and so was reported as "missing" after the ship was torpedoed and sank.

Adams served as a correspondent for Harper's Magazine in Europe during World War I. She was the only female journalist permitted to visit the trenches.

When she and her husband visited eastern Bolivia during a second extended trip to South America in 1935, she wrote twenty-one articles for the National Geographic Society that featured her photographs, including "Some Wonderful Sights in the Andean Highlands" (September 1908), "Kaleidoscopic La Paz: City of the Clouds" (February 1909) and "River-Encircled Paraguay" (April 1933). She wrote on Trinidad, Surinam, Bolivia, Peru and the trans-Andean railroad between Buenos Aires and Valparaiso.

Although invited to lecture by The Explorers Club, she was not invited to join the group (which remained male-only until 1981). In 1925, Adams helped launch the Society of Woman Geographers to address the issue of "the isolation of women of the exploring species", and served as the society's president until 1933. She later also joined the Royal Geographical Society.

In all, Adams is said to have travelled more than a hundred thousand miles, and captivated hundreds of audiences. The New York Times wrote "Harriet Chalmers Adams is America's greatest woman explorer. As a lecturer no one, man or woman, has a more magnetic hold over an audience than she."[citation needed ]

She died in Nice, France, on July 17, 1937, at age 61. An obituary in The Washington Post called her a "confidant of savage head hunters"[citation needed ] who never stopped wandering the remote corners of the world. She is interred at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, California.

Of women as adventurers, she wrote

I've wondered why men have so absolutely monopolized the field of exploration. Why did women never go to the Arctic, try for one pole or the other, or invade Africa, Thibet, or unknown wildernesses? I've never found my sex a hinderment; never faced a difficulty which a woman, as well as a man, could not surmount; never felt a fear of danger; never lacked courage to protect myself. I've been in tight places and have seen harrowing things.

Duncan, Joyce (2010). Ahead of Their Time: a Biographical Dictionary of Risk-Taking Women. Portsmouth: Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated MyiLibrary [distributor. ISBN 9781280908699. OCLC 1065101531.

Anema, Durlynn. Harriet Chalmers Adams: Adventurer and Explorer. Aurora, Colorado: National Writers Press, 2004.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Harriet Chalmers Adams (October 22, 1875 - July 17, 1937) was an American explorer, writer and photographer. She traveled extensively in South America, Asia and the South Pacific in the early 20th century, and published accounts of her journeys in National Geographic magazine.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Fanny Bullock Workman. Photo: United States Library of Congress

In honor of International Women's Day, we explore the life of one of the world's great female explorers - American mountaineer, travel writer, and cartographer Fanny Bullock Workman.

Family life

Born into a wealthy family in Massachusetts in 1859, she had everything a girl of her standing could hope for: a good education, money and status. But the confines and expectations of Victorian society did not sit well with Fanny's untamed spirit. She felt the calling of something deeper and beyond herself.

After marrying a kindred soul, William Hunter Workman, in 1882, she chose to live unconventionally, despite the backlash from those around her. Despite their two children, Rachel and Siegfried, the unusual couple still traveled whenever they felt the urge, leaving the kids in the care of nannies. Years later, the couple even missed their daughter's wedding during one such exotic adventure.

Travel writing

Fanny became an accomplished travel writer, crafting captivating narratives of her experiences in North Africa, Europe, and Asia. Typically, she traveled by bicycle, often thousands of kilometers. From 1888 to 1893, Fanny and her husband cycled through Switzerland, Italy, and France - not as civilized then as now. In 1895, they took their bikes through Spain. Then in 1897, they undertook a long, arduous cycling journey from India to Java.

From these and other travels, she published eight books. These showcased not just cultures, art, and traditions, but also the hardships of the people they met. She showed, in particular, the negative experiences of women. She felt it important to highlight their struggles amid the growing outcry for women's suffrage and rights.

Mountaineering

Eventually, Fanny took a liking to mountaineering. The mid to late 1800s saw a general increase in women mountaineers, although European climbing organizations tried to prevent this shattering of norms. However, American groups promoted a more inclusive and modern vision.

Fanny became one of the first women to climb many well-known peaks. For example, although two French women beat her up Mont Blanc, she was one of the first women to climb it, as well as the Matterhorn and the Jungfrau. She also tackled Pinnacle Peak and Siegfriedhorn, and - in the fashion of the day - named a peak after herself, Mount Bullock Workman.

She and her husband particularly loved exploring glaciers and became amateur glaciologists. Most notably, they explored the Rose Glacier and Chogo Lungma Glacier in the Karakoram. They published their findings in The Geographic Journal.

During their expeditions, they also researched weather and the behavior of glaciers and tried their hand at mapmaking. They included their findings in their books. However, their scientific work was not as well received as their travel writing. Some critics found their research flawed.

Awards and recognition

Yet Fanny's accomplishments were too great to ignore. In the end, she won many medals of honor for her expeditions and gained membership into elite clubs like the American Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society. She spoke at many conferences and renowned institutions and thereby inspired successive generations of women to break the barriers of social expectations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Great Explorers: Fanny Bullock Workman " Explorersweb

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In honor of International Women's Day, we explore the life of one of the world's great female explorers, Fanny Bullock Workman.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn Alexander von Humboldt facts for kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Bessie Coleman soared across the sky as the first woman of African American and Native American descent to earn her pilot's license in the U.S. Known for performing flying tricks, Coleman's nicknames were: "Brave Bessie," "Queen Bess," and "The Only Race Aviatrix in the World." Her goal was to encourage women and African Americans to reach their dreams - and this became her legacy. Though her life and career were cut short in a tragic plane crash, her life and legacy continue to inspire people around the world.

Born in Atlanta, Texas on January 26, 1892, Bessie Coleman had twelve brothers and sisters. Her mother, Susan Coleman, was an African American maid, and her father George Coleman was a sharecropper of mixed Native American and African American descent. In 1901, her father decided to move back to Oklahoma to try to escape discrimination. Coleman's mother decided not to go with him. Instead, Coleman, her mother, and siblings stayed in Waxahachie, Texas. Coleman grew up helping her mother pick cotton and wash laundry to earn extra money. By the time she was eighteen, she saved enough money to attend the Colored Agricultural and Normal University (now Langston University) in Langston, Oklahoma. She dropped out of college after only one semester because she could no longer afford tuition.

At age 23, Coleman went to live with her brothers in Chicago. She went to the Burnham School of Beauty Culture in 1915 and became a manicurist in a local barbershop. Meanwhile, her brothers served in the military during World War I and came home with stories of their time in France. Her brother John teased her because French women were allowed to learn how to fly airplanes and, in the United States, Coleman could not. Her brother's stories, along with other news of pilots in the war, inspired her to become a pilot. She applied to many flight schools across the country, but no school would take her because she was both African American and a woman. Robert Abbot, a famous African American newspaper publisher told her to move to France where she could learn how to fly. Since her application to flight schools needed to be written in French, she began taking French classes at night. Finally, Coleman was accepted at the Caudron Brothers' School of Aviation in Le Crotoy, France. She received her international pilot's license on June 15, 1921 from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. She then returned to the United States.

Coleman's dream was to own a plane and to open her own flight school. She gave speeches and showed films of her air tricks at churches, theaters, and schools to earn money. She refused to speak anywhere that was segregated or discriminated against African Americans. In 1922, she performed the first public flight by an African American woman. She was famous for doing "loop-the-loops" and making the shape of an "8" in an airplane. People were fascinated by her performances, and she became more popular both in the United States and in Europe. She toured the country giving flight lessons and performing in flight shows, and she encouraged African Americans and women to learn how to fly.

Only two years into her flight career, Coleman survived her first major airplane accident. In February 1923, her airplane engine suddenly stopped working mid-flight and she crashed. She was badly hurt in the accident and suffered a broken leg, a few cracked ribs, and cuts on her face. Thankfully, Coleman fully healed from her injuries. This accident did not stop her from flying. She went back to performing dangerous air tricks in 1925. Her hard work helped her to save up enough money to purchase her own plane, a Jenny - JN-4 with an OX-5 engine. Soon she returned to her hometown in Texas to perform for a large crowd. Since Texas was segregated, the managers planned to create two separate entrances for African Americans and white people to get into the stadium. Coleman refused to perform unless there was only one gate for everyone to use. After many meetings, the managers agreed to have one gate, but people would still have to sit in segregated sections of the stadium. She agreed to perform and became famous for publicly standing up for her beliefs.

On April 30, 1926, Bessie Coleman took a test flight with a mechanic named William Wills. Wills piloted the plane while Coleman sat in the passenger seat. At about 3,000 feet in the air, a loose wrench got stuck in the engine of the aircraft. Wills could no longer control the steering wheel, and the plane flipped over. Coleman was not wearing a seatbelt. At the time, airplanes did not have a roof. Due to her un-fastened seatbelt, when the plane flipped over Coleman fell out of the open plane. She did not survive the fall. Wills crashed the aircraft a few feet away and also died in the accident. Her death was heartbreaking for thousands of people across the world. At her funeral in Chicago, famous activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett delivered her eulogy.

Though she died at the age of 34, her legacy continues to inspire communities all over the country. In 1931, the Challenger Pilots' Association of Chicago started a tradition of flying over Coleman's grave every year. Many aviation clubs were named in her honor, including the Bessie Coleman Aero Club, organized by William Powell in the 1930s, and the Bessie Coleman Aviators, which formed in Chicago in 1977. In 1995, the "Bessie Coleman Stamp" was made to commemorate all of her accomplishments. In 2023, the U.S. Mint released a special quarter featuring Bessie Coleman as part of the American Women Quarters™ Program.
Reflection questions:
Use the following questions before, during, and after reading the biography to deepen your understanding of Bessie Coleman.

What obstacles did Bessie Coleman face in the early 20th century and why did she face them?

How did Bessie Coleman advocate for African American people while she was a pilot?

What legacy did Bessie Coleman leave behind?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Bessie Coleman soared across the sky as the first African American, and the first Native American, woman pilot. Known for performing flying tricks, Coleman's nicknames were; "Brave Bessie," "Queen Bess," and "The Only Race Aviatrix in the World."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mae Carol Jemison (born October 17, 1956) is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first black woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Jemison joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1987 and was chosen to serve for the STS-47 mission, during which she orbited the Earth for nearly eight days from September 12-20, 1992.

Born in Alabama and raised in Chicago, Jemison graduated from Stanford University with degrees in chemical engineering as well as African and African-American studies. She then earned her medical degree from Cornell University. Jemison was a doctor for the Peace Corps in Liberia and Sierra Leone from 1983 until 1985 and worked as a general practitioner. Because she wanted to be an astronaut, she applied to NASA.

Jemison left NASA in 1993 and founded a technology research company, The Jemison Group, Inc., that encourages science, technology, and social change. She later formed a non-profit educational foundation, The Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence in 1994. Through the foundation she is the principal of the 100 Year Starship project funded by DARPA. Jemison also wrote several books for children and appeared on television several times, including in a 1993 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She holds several honorary doctorates and has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the International Space Hall of Fame.

Early life and education

Mae Carol Jemison was born in Decatur, Alabama, on October 17, 1956, the youngest of three children of Charlie and Dorothy Jemison. Her father was a maintenance supervisor for a charity organization, and her mother worked most of her career as an elementary school teacher of English and math at the Ludwig van Beethoven Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois.

Jemison enjoyed studying nature and human physiology, using her observations to learn more about science. Although her mother encouraged her curiosity and both her parents were supportive of her interest in science, she did not always see the same support from her teachers. Seeing a lack of female astronauts during the Apollo missions frustrated Jemison. She later recalled, "everybody was thrilled about space, but I remember being really really irritated that there were no women astronauts."

Jemison began studying ballet at the age of 8 or 9 and entered high school at 12 years old, where she joined the cheerleading team and the Modern Dance Club. She learned several styles of dance, including African and Japanese, as well as ballet, jazz, and modern dance. At the age of 14, she auditioned for the leading role of Maria in West Side Story. She did not get the leading role but was selected as a background dancer.

After graduating from Chicago's Morgan Park High School in 1973, Jemison entered Stanford University at the age of 16. There were very few other African-American students in Jemison's classes and she continued to experience discrimination from her teachers. In an interview with The Des Moines Register in 2008, Jemison said that it was difficult to go to Stanford at 16 but that her youthful arrogance may have helped her.

At Stanford, Jemison served as head of the Black Students Union. She also choreographed a musical and dance production called Out of the Shadows. During her senior year in college, she struggled with the choice between going to medical school or becoming a professional dancer after graduation. She graduated from Stanford in 1977, receiving a B.S. degree in chemical engineering and B.A. degree in African and African-American studies. While Mae was at Stanford, she considered applying to NASA.

Medical Career

Jemison attended Cornell Medical School and during her training, she traveled to use her skills to help other people. She went to Cuba to help in a study funded by American Medical Student Association; she traveled to Thailand, where she worked at a Cambodian refugee camp; and she also worked for Flying Doctors stationed in East Africa. During her years at Cornell, Jemison continued to study dance by enrolling in classes at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. After graduating with an M.D. degree in 1981, she interned at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in 1982, and worked as a general practitioner (a doctor who helps as many people as possible, not focusing on and becoming very good at one area of medicine) for Ross-Loos Medical Group.

Jemison joined the staff of the Peace Corps in 1983 and served as a medical officer until 1985 in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Jemison's job was to direct the Peace Corps' pharmacy, laboratory, and medical staff. She helped patients, wrote handbooks for self-care, and created rules for health and safety issues. She also worked with the Centers for Disease Control helping with research for vaccines.

NASA Career

After returning home from the Peace Corps, Jemison applied to NASA's astronaut training program in October 1985. Soon after she applied, NASA had a terrible accident on January 28, 1986. Challenger was launched in Florida and it blew up soon after taking off. The astronauts were all killed. There would be no more astronauts going into space until the scientists figured out what had happened. Jemison became one of the fifteen people who were chosen for a special type of instruction at NASA a year after this accident had happened. The training was physically demanding and included more studying of science.

On September 28, 1989, she was chosen to join the 50th mission on the Endeavour, called STS-47. Her job was Mission Specialist 4, and she was also designated Science Mission Specialist, a new astronaut role being tested by NASA to focus on scientific experiments.

Jemison's mission was flown from September 12-20, 1992, where she logged 190 hours, 30 minutes, 23 seconds in space, and orbited the earth 127 times. The crew was split into two shifts with Jemison assigned to the Blue Shift. Throughout the eight-day mission, she began communications on her shift with the salute, "Hailing frequencies open," a quote from Star Trek. Jemison took a poster from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater along with her on the flight. She also took a West African statuette and a photo of Bessie Coleman, the first African American with an international pilot license.

STS-47 was a joint mission between the United States and Japan that included 43 Japanese and U.S. experiments. Jemison took part in several of the experiments that were completed in space. She and Japanese astronaut Mamoru Mohri looked into possible treatments for motion sickness, anxiety, and stress-related disorders. Jemison experimented with producing saline solution and was a co-investigator in two bone cell research experiments. Another experiment she participated in was to fertilize the eggs of female frogs and then see how tadpoles developed in zero gravity.

Resignation from NASA

Jemison resigned from NASA in March 1993 to start her own company. NASA training manager and author Homer Hickam, who had trained Jemison for her flight, later said that he was sad that she had left NASA.

Post-NASA Career

Jemison served on the board of directors of the World Sickle Cell Foundation from 1990 to 1992. In 1993, she founded The Jemison Group Inc., a business that studies how advancements in technology affect people. Jemison also founded the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence and named the foundation in honor of her mother. The foundation sponsors programs and events including:

The Earth We Share: a science camp for students aged 12 to 16

Shaping the World essay competition

Listening to the Future: a survey program to get information from students

Earth Online: an online chatroom that allows students to safely discuss ideas on space and science

Reality Leads Fantasy Gala

Jemison was a professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College from 1995 to 2002 where she directed the Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries. In 1999, she also became an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. Jemison continues to tell as many people as she can about science education and tries to get minority students interested in science. She is a member of several organizations, such as the American Medical Association, the American Chemical Society, the Association of Space Explorers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In 1999, Jemison founded BioSentient Corp. She received a license to sell the relaxation technique that she and Mamoru Mohri tested on themselves during the STS-47 mission.

In 2012, the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence was awarded a $500,000 grant for further work. The new organization maintained the organizational name 100 Year Starship. Jemison is the current principal of the 100 Year Starship.

In 2018, she cooperated with Bayer Crop Science and National 4-H Council for the project named Science Matters, which was aimed at encouraging young children to understand and pursue agricultural sciences.

The Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence

In 1994, Jemison established The Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence. It is named after her mother Dorothy, who was a teacher in Chicago Public Schools for 25 years. This non-profit foundation develops and implements teaching methods and programs, with a focus on building critical thinking skills and science literacy, and encourages kids' responsibility in achieving excellence.

Mae Jemison quotes

"Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations."

"The best way to make dreams come true is to wake up."

"Science is very important to me, but I also like to stress that you have to be well-rounded."

"I want to make sure we use all our talent, not just 25 percent."

Interesting facts about Mae Jemison

Mae Jemison was 1 of 15 people selected to join NASA in the 1987 NASA Astronaut Group 12.

When she was a child, Jamison completed an entire science project on pus.

Mae holds 10 honorary doctorates at 10 different colleges.

When she left NASA, they were unhappy because they spent money training her and needed her to fill their woman of color position.

Jemison now leads the 100 Year Starship project, which strives to safely allow human space travel to another star within the next century.

Mae Jemison advocates for minority students to develop an interest in science.

Honors and awards

1988 Essence Science and Technology Award

1990 Gamma Sigma Sigma Woman of the Year

1991 McCall's 10 Outstanding Women for the 90s

1992 Johnson Publications Black Achievement Trailblazers Award

1992 Ebony Black Achievement Award

1993 National Women's Hall of Fame

1993 Ebony magazine 50 Most Influential women

1993 Kilby Science Award

1993 Montgomery Fellow, Dartmouth College

1993 People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World"

1993 Turner Trumpet Award

2002 listed among the 100 Greatest African Americans according to Molefi Kete Asante

2002 Texas Women's Hall of Fame inductee

2003 Intrepid Award by the National Organization for Girls

2004 International Space Hall of Fame

2005 The National Audubon Society, Rachel Carson Award

2017 Buzz Aldrin Space Pioneer Award

2019 Florida Southern College Honorary Chancellor

Institutions

1992 Mae C. Jemison Science and Space Museum, Wilbur Wright College, Chicago, Illinois

1992 Mae C. Jemison Academy, an alternative public school in Detroit, Michigan

2001 Mae Jemison School, an elementary public school in Hazel Crest, Illinois

2007 Bluford Drew Jemison STEM Academy, a public charter school in Baltimore, Maryland (closed in 2013)

2010 Bluford Drew Jemison STEM Academy West, a Middle/High School in Baltimore, Maryland

2013 Jemison High School, Huntsville, Alabama

Honorary doctorates

1991 Doctor of Letters, Winston-Salem College, North Carolina

1991 Doctor of Science, Lincoln College, Pennsylvania

2000 Doctor of Humanities, Princeton University

2005 Doctor of Science, Wilson College, North Carolina

2006 Doctor of Science, Dartmouth College

2007 Doctor of Engineering, Harvey Mudd College

2007 Doctor of Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

2008 Doctor of Humanities, DePaul University

2009 Doctor of Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of NYU

2019 Doctor of Humane Letters, Florida Southern College

Filmography

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1993) - Lieutenant Palmer, episode "Second Chances"

Susan B. Anthony Slept Here (1995) - herself

Star Trek: 30 Years and Beyond (1996) - herself

The New Explorers (1998) - episode "Endeavor"

How William Shatner Changed the World (2005) - herself

African American Lives (2006) - herself

No Gravity (2011) - herself

The Real (2016) - herself

Images for kids

In Spanish: Mae Jemison para niños

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Dereck and Beverly are environmentalists and documentary filmmakers who focus on the big cats native to their home in Botswana, and throughout Africa. They helped the National Geographic Society establish the Big Cats Initiative, which provides information and solutions to stop the number of big cats, especially lions, from dwindling.

EARLY WORK

Beverly and Dereck, who met when they were teenagers, always had an interest in the outdoors.

Dereck and his family often spent holidays in nature preserves. "It's part of my DNA," he says.

Beverly remembers how she and her twin brother explored the grasslands surrounding their childhood home in South Africa. She was awed by the "vast, open veldt."

MOST EXCITING PART OF YOUR WORK

Beverly: "Being somewhere in the field and not knowing what will happen . . . capturing a unique scene or behavior . . . discovering something new for science."

Dereck: "Spending time with individual animals, such as a leopard, and getting to know their personality and character."

MOST DEMANDING PART OF YOUR WORK

Beverly and Dereck answer in unison: "Leaving the bush, finishing a project."

Beverly says the hours required can be grueling. "We work seven days a week, 18-19 hours a day in extreme climates. The heat, dust, rain, and all the bugs can be emotionally exhausting, as well as physically."

Dereck adds, "Because we work with predators, we deal with death all the time."

HOW DO YOU DEFINE GEOGRAPHY?

Dereck defines geography as an active process: "Going out into the edges of society, gathering information, and bringing it back to the center. . . . It can be a journey in the mind. Going to the edge of the unknown.

"Geography is looking at the Earth, and seeing the lines on its face."

GEO-CONNECTION

Beverly and Dereck visit schools and museums all over the world, and they have noticed that students in developed countries are not as well-prepared in geography as students in less-developed countries.

"Kids in these far-flung places have a better sense of geography," Dereck says. "They have to actively find themselves on a map. 'Where am I?'"

Beverly encourages students to "get a visceral connection to a place"-not just looking for places on a map, but understanding the climate, biodiversity, and culture of a specific location.

SO, YOU WANT TO BE A . . . WILDLIFE FILMMAKER

Dereck encourages students to study diverse topics in biology-Earth science, zoology, ecology-instead of focusing on the latest camera or filmmaking technology. "Technology changes! It's so much more important to understand the natural world," he says.

GET INVOLVED

Beverly says conservationists "need to be completely 'in the zone'." Turning off personal electronic devices is a great way to get closer to the natural world, she says. It allows people to always be watching and observing nature, instead of "listening for the beep-beep" of a smartphone.

Dereck is more succinct about the demands of life in the field: "Toughen up!"

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

Media

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service.

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Wildlife Filmmakers and Conservationists: Dereck and Beverly Joubert

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Profile of Dereck and Beverly Joubert, conservationists, wildlife filmmakers, and National Geographic Explorers at Large.

# data[].attributes.body
https://pgoplayer.pebblego.com/articles/3099

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Spanish Empire

Francisco Pizarro González, Marquess of the Atabillos (; Spanish: [fɾanˈθisko piˈθaro]; c. 16 March 1478 - 26 June 1541) was a Spanish conquistador, best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of Peru.

Born in Trujillo, Spain to a poor family, Pizarro chose to pursue fortune and adventure in the New World. He went to the Gulf of Urabá, and accompanied Vasco Núñez de Balboa in his crossing of the Isthmus of Panama, where they became the first Europeans to see the Pacific Ocean from the Americas. He served as mayor of the newly founded Panama City for a few years and undertook two failed expeditions to Peru. In 1529, Pizarro obtained permission from the Spanish crown to lead a campaign to conquer Peru and went on his third, and successful, expedition.

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 1475. Little attention was paid to his education and he grew up illiterate.

On 10 November 1509, Pizarro sailed from Spain to the New World with Alonso de Ojeda on an expedition to Gulf of Urabá in Tierra Firme. Pizarro became a participant in Ojeda's failed colony, commanding the remnants until he abandoned it with the survivors. He sailed to Cartagena and joined the fleet of Martín Fernández de Enciso in 1513.

Early career as Conquistador

On 10 November 1509, Pizarro sailed from Spain to the New World with Alonso de Ojeda on an expedition to Urabá. He sailed to Cartagena and joined the fleet of Martín Fernández de Enciso and, in 1513, accompanied Balboa in his crossing of the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific. The following year, Pedro Arias Dávila became the newly appointed governor of Castilla de Oro and succeeded Balboa. During the next five years, Pizarro became a close associate of Dávila and the governor assigned him a repartimiento of natives and cattle. When Dávila decided to get rid of Balboa out of distrust, he instructed Pizarro to personally arrest him and bring him to stand trial. Balboa was beheaded in January 1519. For his loyalty to Dávila, Pizarro was rewarded with the positions of mayor (Alcalde) and magistrate of the then recently founded Panama City from 1519 to 1523.

Expeditions to South America

The first attempt to explore western South America was undertaken in 1522 by Pascual de Andagoya. The native South Americans he encountered told him about a gold-rich territory called Virú, which was on a river called Pirú (later evolving to Perú). These reports were relayed by the Spanish-Inca writer Garcilaso de la Vega in Comentarios Reales de los Incas (1609).

Andagoya eventually established contact with several Native American curacas (chiefs), some of whom he later claimed were sorcerers and witches. Having reached as far as the San Juan River (part of the present boundary between Ecuador and Colombia) Andagoya fell ill and returned to Panama. He spread the news and stories about "Pirú" - a great land to the south rich with gold (the legendary El Dorado). These revelations, along with the accounts for Cortés' success in Mexico, caught the attention of Pizarro, prompting a series of expeditions to the south.

In 1524, while still in Panama, Pizarro formed a partnership with a priest, Hernando de Luque and a soldier, Diego de Almagro, to explore and conquer the South. Pizarro, Almagro and Luque later explicitly renewed their compact, agreeing to conquer and divide equally among themselves the empire they hoped to vanquish. While their accord was strictly oral, they dubbed their enterprise the Empresa del Levante and determined that Pizarro would command the expedition, Almagro would provide military and food supplies and Luque would be in charge of finances and additional provisions.

First expedition (1524)

In November 1524, the first of three expeditions left Panama for the conquest of Peru with about 80 men and 4 horses. Juan de Salcedo was the standard bearer, Nicolás de Ribera was the treasurer and Juan Carvallo was the inspector.

Diego de Almagro was left behind because he was to recruit men, gather additional supplies and join Pizarro later. The Governor of Panama, Pedro Arias Dávila, at first approved in principle of exploring South America. Pizarro's first expedition, however, turned out to be a failure as his conquistadores, sailing down the Pacific coast, reached no farther than Colombia before succumbing to bad weather, lack of food and skirmishes with hostile natives, one of which caused Almagro to lose an eye by arrow-shot. The place names the Spanish bestowed along their route, including Puerto Deseado (desired port), Puerto del Hambre (port of hunger) and Punta Quemado or Puebla Quemado (burned port), confirmed their difficulties. Fearing subsequent hostile encounters like the one the expedition endured at the Battle of Punta Quemada, Pizarro ended his first expedition and returned to Panama.

Second expedition (1526)

Two years later Pizarro, Almagro and Luque started the arrangements for a second expedition with permission from Pedrarias Dávila. The governor, who himself was preparing an expedition north to Nicaragua, was reluctant to permit another expedition, having lost confidence in Pizarro. The three associates eventually won his trust and he acquiesced. By this time, a new governor was to arrive and succeed Dávila. Pedro de los Ríos took charge in July 1526 and initially approved Pizarro's expeditions (he would join him several years later in Peru).

On 10 March 1526 Pizarro left Panama with two ships with 160 men and several horses, reaching as far as the Colombian San Juan River. Soon after arriving the party separated, with Pizarro staying to explore the new and often perilous territory off the swampy Colombian coasts, while the expedition's co-commander, Almagro, returned to Panama for reinforcements. Pizarro's Piloto Mayor (main pilot), Bartolomé Ruiz, continued sailing south and, after crossing the equator, found and captured a balsa (raft) under sail, with natives from Tumbes. To everyone's surprise, these carried textiles, ceramic objects and some pieces of gold, silver and emeralds, making Ruiz's findings the central focus of this second expedition. Some natives were taken aboard Ruiz's ship to serve as interpreters.

He then set sail north for the San Juan River, arriving to find Pizarro and his men exhausted from the difficulties they had faced exploring the new territory. Soon Almagro sailed into the port laden with supplies and a reinforcement of at least eighty recruits who had arrived at Panama from Spain with an expeditionary spirit. The findings and excellent news from Ruiz along with Almagro's new reinforcements cheered Pizarro and his tired followers. They decided to sail back to the territory already explored by Ruiz and, after a difficult voyage due to strong winds and currents, reached Atacames on the Ecuadorian coast. Here, they found a large native population recently brought under Inca rule. Unfortunately for the conquistadores, the people they encountered seemed so defiant and numerous that the Spanish decided not to enter the land.

The Famous Thirteen

After much wrangling between Pizarro and Almagro, it was decided that Pizarro would stay at a safer place, the Isla de Gallo, near the coast, while Almagro would return to Panama with Luque for more reinforcements - this time with proof of the gold they had found and the news of the discovery of the obviously wealthy land they had explored. The new governor of Panama, Pedro de los Ríos, had learned of the mishaps of Pizarro's expeditions and the deaths of various settlers who had gone with him. Fearing an unsuccessful outcome, he rejected Almagro's application for continued resources. In addition, he ordered two ships commanded by Juan Tafur to be sent immediately with the intention of bringing Pizarro and his crew back to Panama.

Pizarro had no intention of returning and when Tafur arrived at Isla de Gallo, Pizarro drew a line in the sand, saying: "There lies Peru with its riches; Here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south."

Only 13 men stayed with Pizarro. They later became known as "The Famous Thirteen" ( Los trece de la fama), while the rest of the expeditioners stayed with Tafur. Ruiz left in one of the ships with the intention of joining Almagro and Luque in their efforts to gather reinforcements. Soon after the ships left, Pizarro and his men constructed a crude boat and journeyed 25 leagues north to La Isla Gorgona, where they would remain for seven months before the arrival of new provisions.

Back in Panama, Pedro de los Ríos (after much convincing by Luque) had finally acquiesced to the requests for another ship, but only to bring Pizarro back within six months and completely abandon the expedition. Almagro and Luque grasped the opportunity and left Panama (this time without new recruits) for La Isla Gorgona to once again join Pizarro. On meeting with Pizarro, the associates decided to continue sailing south on the recommendations of Ruiz's Indian interpreters.

On their return towards Panama, Pizarro briefly stopped at Tumbes, where two of his men had decided to stay to learn the customs and language of the natives. Pizarro was also given two Peruvian boys to learn Spanish, one of whom was later baptized as Felipillo and served as an important interpreter, the equivalent of Cortés' La Malinche of Mexico, and another called Martinillo. Their final stop was at La Isla Gorgona, where two of his ill men (one had died) had stayed. After at least 18 months away, Pizarro and his followers anchored off the coasts of Panama to prepare for the final expedition.

Capitulación de Toledo

When the new governor of Panama, Pedro de los Ríos, refused to allow for a third expedition to the south, the associates resolved for Pizarro to leave for Spain and appeal to the sovereign in person. Pizarro sailed from Panama for Spain in the spring of 1528, accompanied by Pedro de Candia, some natives and llamas, plus samples of fabric, gold and silver.

Pizarro reached Seville in early summer. King Charles I, who was at Toledo, had an interview with Pizarro and heard of his expeditions in South America. The conquistador described the territory as rich in gold and silver that he and his followers had bravely explored "to extend the empire of Castile". The king, who was soon to leave for Italy, was impressed at his accounts and promised his support for the conquest of Peru. Queen Isabel, though, in the absence of the king, signed the Capitulación de Toledo on 6 July 1529, a license document that authorized Pizarro to proceed with the conquest of Peru. Pizarro was officially named the Governor, Captain general, Adelantado and Alguacil Mayor, of New Castile for the distance of 200 leagues along the newly discovered coast and invested with all authority and prerogatives, leaving his associates in secondary positions (a fact that later incensed Almagro and would lead to eventual discord). One of the grant conditions was that within six months, Pizarro should raise a sufficiently equipped force of 250 men, of whom 100 might be drawn from the colonies.

This gave Pizarro time to leave for his native Trujillo and convince his brother Hernando Pizarro and other close friends to join him on his third expedition. Francisco de Orellana joined the group and would later discover and explore the length of the Amazon River. Two half-brothers from his father, Juan Pizarro and Gonzalo Pizarro, and a half-brother from his mother, Francisco Martín de Alcántara, later also decided to join him, as well as his cousin Pedro Pizarro, who served as his page. When the expedition left the following year, it numbered three ships, 180 men and 27 horses.

Pizarro could not raise the number of men the Capitulación required and sailed clandestinely from the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda for the Canary Island of La Gomera in January 1530. He was there joined by his brother Hernando and the remaining men in two vessels that would sail back to Panama. Pizarro's third and final expedition left Panama for Peru on 27 December 1530.

Conquest of Peru (1532)

In 1531, Pizarro once again landed on the coasts near Ecuador, the province of Coaque and the region of esmeraldas, where some gold, silver and emeralds were procured and then dispatched to Almagro. The latter had stayed in Panama to gather more recruits. Sebastián de Belalcázar soon arrived with 30 men. Though Pizarro's main objective was then to set sail and dock at Tumbes like his previous expedition, he was forced to confront the Punian natives in the Battle of Puná, leaving three or four Spaniards dead and many wounded. Soon after, Hernando de Soto, another conquistador who had joined the expedition, arrived with 100 volunteers and horses to aid Pizarro and with him sailed towards Tumbes, only to find the place deserted and destroyed. The two conquistadors expected that the settlers had disappeared or died under murky circumstances. The chiefs explained that the fierce tribes of Punians had attacked them and ransacked the place.

As Tumbes no longer afforded safe accommodations, Pizarro led an excursion into the interior in May 1532 and established the first Spanish settlement in Peru, San Miguel de Piura, and a repartimiento.

Leaving 50 men back at the settlement under the command of Antonio Navarro, Pizarro proceeded with his conquest accompanied by 200 men on 24 September 1532. After arriving at Zaran, de Soto was dispatched to a Peruvian garrison at Caxas. After a week, he returned with an envoy from the Inca himself, with presents and an invitation to visit the Inca ruler's camp.

Atahualpa's refusal led Pizarro and his force to attack the Inca army in what became the Battle of Cajamarca on 16 November 1532. The Spanish were successful. Pizarro executed Atahualpa's 12-man honor guard and took the Inca captive at the so-called Ransom Room. By February 1533, Almagro had joined Pizarro in Cajamarca with an additional 150 men and 50 horses.

Despite fulfilling his promise of filling one room (22 by 17 feet or 7 by 5 metres) with gold and two with silver, Atahualpa was convicted of 12 charges, including killing his brother and plotting against Pizarro and his forces. He was executed by garrote on 29 August 1533. Francisco Pizarro and de Soto were opposed to Atahualpa's execution, but Francisco consented to the trial due to the "great agitation among the soldiers", particularly by Almagro. De Soto was on a reconnaissance mission the day of the trial and execution and upon his return expressed his dismay, stating, "he should have been taken to Castile and judged by the emperor." King Charles later wrote to Pizarro: "We have been displeased by the death of Atahualpa, since he was a monarch and particularly as it was done in the name of justice."

Pizarro advanced with his army of 500 Spaniards toward Cuzco, accompanied by Chalcuchimac, one of the leading Inca generals of the north and a supporter of Atahualpa, who was subsequently burned at the stake. Manco Inca Yupanqui joined Pizarro after the death of Túpac Huallpa. During the exploration of Cuzco, Pizarro was impressed and through his officers wrote back to King Charles I of Spain, saying: "This city is the greatest and the finest ever seen in this country or anywhere in the Indies... We can assure your Majesty that it is so beautiful and has such fine buildings that it would be remarkable even in Spain."

The Spanish sealed the conquest of Peru by entering Cuzco on 15 November 1533. Jauja, in the fertile Mantaro Valley, was established as Peru's provisional capital in April 1534, but it was high up in the mountains and too distant from the sea to serve as the capital. Pizarro founded the city of Lima on Peru's central coast on 6 January 1535, which he considered to be one of the most important things he had created in life.

By early 1536, Manco Inka, supported by an army of perhaps 100,000 people, initiated a siege of Cuzco. At the same time, smaller Incan expeditionary forces moved to destroy other European strongholds. In the three years of continuous warfare since the arrival of Pizarro, Incan military leaders had become familiar with Spanish military tactics and developed effective counters. Perhaps the most effective of these military innovations was the one that dealt with the Europeans' greatest advantage on the battlefield: horses. Incan soldiers would offer battle but hold their position until the Spaniards had concentrated their cavalry in order to break the indigenous line. They would then fall back before the cavalry charge and draw the Europeans into a canyon where prepositioned forces could crush them under avalanches of rocks and missile weapons. Instead of charging the numerically inferior Europeans as they had done early on, Incan soldiers used their discipline and knowledge of the terrain in order to draw the armoured cavalry charge into a death trap. Well documented battlefield deaths show that many more Spaniards died in these battles than in the early days of the war when theoretically the Inca had a much greater advantage. Despite winning the majority of the battles, the inability of the Incan forces to overwhelm Cuzco's fortifications, manned as they were by only 200 fighting men armed with gunpowder weapons, signalled the definitive victory of Spanish forces.

After the final effort of the Inca to recover Cuzco had been defeated by Almagro, a dispute occurred between Pizarro and Almagro respecting the limits of their jurisdiction, as both claimed the city of Cuzco. The king of Spain had awarded the Governorate of New Toledo to Almagro and the Governorate of New Castile to Pizarro. The dispute had originated from a disagreement on how to interpret the limit between the governorates. This led to confrontations between the Pizarro brothers and Almagro, who was eventually defeated during the Battle of Las Salinas (1538) and executed. Almagro's son, also named Diego and known as El Mozo, was later stripped of his lands and left bankrupt by Pizarro.

Atahualpa's wife, 10-year-old Cuxirimay Ocllo Yupanqui, was with Atahualpa's army in Cajamarca and had stayed with him while he was imprisoned. Following his execution, she was taken to Cuzco and given the name Dona Angelina. By 1538, it was known she had borne Pizarro two sons, Juan and Francisco.

In Lima, on 26 June 1541 "a group of 20 heavily armed supporters of Diego de Almagro II "el mozo" stormed Pizarro's palace, assassinating him and then forcing the terrified city council to appoint young Almagro as the new governor of Peru", according to Burkholder and Johnson. "Most of Pizarro's guests fled, but a few fought the intruders, numbered variously between seven and 25. While Pizarro struggled to buckle on his breastplate, his defenders, including his half-brother Martín de Alcántara, were killed". For his part, Pizarro killed two attackers and ran through a third. While trying to pull out his sword, he was stabbed in the throat, then fell to the floor where he was stabbed many times." He died moments after. Diego de Almagro the younger was caught and executed the following year after losing the battle of Chupas.

Pizarro's remains were briefly interred in the cathedral courtyard; at some later time, his head and body were separated and buried in separate boxes underneath the floor of the cathedral. In 1892, in preparation for the anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the Americas, a body believed to be that of Pizarro was exhumed and put on display in a glass coffin. However, in 1977, men working on the cathedral's foundation discovered a lead box in a sealed niche, which bore the inscription: "Here is the head of Marquess Don Francisco Pizarro who discovered and conquered the kingdoms of Peru and presented them to the crown of Castile." A team of forensic scientists from the United States, led by William R. Maples, was invited to examine the two bodies and they soon determined that the body which had been honored in the glass case for nearly a century had been incorrectly identified. The skull within the lead box not only bore the marks of multiple sword blows, but the features bore a remarkable resemblance to portraits made of the man in life.

By his marriage to N de Trujillo, Pizarro had a son also named Francisco, who married his relative Inés Pizarro, without issue. After Pizarro's death, Inés Yupanqui, whom he took as a mistress, favourite sister of Atahualpa, who had been given to Francisco in marriage by her brother, married a Spanish cavalier named Ampuero and left for Spain, taking her daughter who would later be legitimized by imperial decree. Francisca Pizarro Yupanqui eventually married her uncle Hernando Pizarro in Spain, on 10 October 1537; the third son of Pizarro who was never legitimized, Francisco, by Dona Angelina, a wife of Atahualpa that he had taken as a mistress, died shortly after reaching Spain.

After his invasion, Pizarro destroyed the Inca state and while ruling the area for almost a decade, initiated the decline of local cultures. The Incas' polytheistic religion was replaced by Christianity and much of the local population was reduced to serfdom under the Spanish elite. The cities of the Inca Empire were transformed into Spanish Catholic cities. Pizarro is also reviled for ordering Atahualpa's death despite the ransom payment (which Pizarro kept, after paying the Spanish king his due). Some Peruvians, particularly those of indigenous descent, may regard him negatively, although until relatively recently Pizarro had been portrayed positively, for instance in textbooks, for introducing Catholicism and creating a privileged class of mainly Spanish descent.

Sculptures

In the early 1930s, sculptor Ramsay MacDonald created three copies of an anonymous European foot soldier resembling a conquistador with a helmet, wielding a sword and riding a horse. The first copy was offered to Mexico to represent Cortés, though it was rejected. The statue was taken to Lima in 1934 and re-purposed to represent Pizarro. One other copy of the statue resides in Wisconsin. The mounted statue of Pizarro in the Plaza Mayor in Trujillo, Spain, was created by American sculptor Charles Rumsey. It was presented to the city by his widow in 1926.

The statue long stood an adjacent square to Peru's Government Palace. In 2003, after years of requests for the statue to be removed, the mayor of Lima, Luis Castañeda Lossio, approved the transfer of the statue to another location. Since 2004, however, Pizarro's statue has been in a park surrounded by the recently restored 17th-century walls in the Rímac District. The statue faces the Rímac River and the Government Palace.

Palace of the Conquest

After returning from Peru extremely wealthy, the Pizarro family erected a plateresque-style palace on the corner of the Plaza Mayor in Trujillo. Francisca Pizarro Yupanqui and her uncle/husband Hernando Pizarro ordered the building of the palace; it features busts of them and others. It instantly became a recognizable symbol of the plaza.

The opulent palace is structured in four stands, giving it the significance of the coat of arms of the Pizarro family, which is situated at one of its corner balconies displaying its iconographic content. The building's decor includes plateresque ornaments and balustrades.

Works of Pizarro

"Francisco Pizarro response to a petition by Pedro del Barco", 14 April 1539. From the Collections at the Library of Congress

In Spanish: Francisco Pizarro para niños

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sydney Ferreira Possuelo (born 19 April 1940, in Santos Dumont), is a Brazilian explorer, social activist and ethnographer who is considered the leading authority on Brazil's remaining isolated Indigenous Peoples.

Life and work

Sydney Possuelo started his career assisting the famous Villas Boas brothers with their work among indigenous peoples of the Xingu River area. Later he became the Director of the Department of Indigenous in Isolation (Departamento de Indios Isolados) at the FUNAI (National Indian Foundation of Brazil), doubling the surface size of officially designated Indigenous land in Brazil in only two years.

Working in the most isolated areas in the Amazon region, Possuelo has led many expeditions, getting in contact with isolated tribes in Brazil, with the aim to protect them from outsiders. He was responsible, among others, for the restoration of peaceful contact with the Korubo Indians, who had previously killed some FUNAI officials.

For his many efforts Sydney has received many prizes, including honors from the National Geographic Society, Bartolomeu de las Casas in 1998, a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society, the title of "Hero of the Planet" by Time Kids Magazine, as well as "Hero of the year" 2001 by United Nations.

In his 60 years of work, Brazilian-born Possuelo has made contact with seven tribes that had never previously been exposed to white people, was responsible for demarcating about 15 percent of Brazil's territory as protected reserves for the indigenous communities, and afterward adopted an opposite - and revolutionary - policy of avoiding contact with those peoples, in order to protect them. With machete in hand and without an academic degree, he became an ethnographer and spent years in the jungles in the company of the native peoples.
For years Possuelo worked for and headed the Department for Isolated Indians in FUNAI, Brazil's National Indian Bureau. His efforts have made him the foremost authority in the field, a spokesman for the indigenous tribes of the Amazon region and one of the most admired and decorated activists in the world. Without him, dozens of tribes would have become extinct.

Until January 24, 2006 he was head of the FUNAI Department of Unknown Tribes, a governmental bureau responsible for protecting the land and lifestyle of isolated tribes from encroaching settlers. Days earlier, he had criticized FUNAI director Mercio Pereira Gomes for suggesting that Brazilian Indians held too much land, comparing Gomes to "ranchers, land-grabbers, miners, and loggers." Soon afterwards, Possuelo was dismissed from his position.

Possuelo is still continuing his efforts at defending isolated tribes through the non-governmential Instituto Indigenista Interamericano.

Possuelo is the main protagonist in the book The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes (2011) by National Geographic writer Scott Wallace. It details a 76-day expedition in 2002 led by Possuelo to find the status of the "Arrow People", an uncontacted tribe in the Vale do Javari Indigenous Land.

In Spanish: Sydney Possuelo para niños

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ferdinand Magellan (Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães, Spanish: Fernando de Magallanes) (1480 - April 27, 1521) was a Portuguese explorer.

Magellan is given credit for having given the Pacific Ocean its name. He called it Mar Pacifico, which means "peaceful sea" in Portuguese.

He became the first European to sail the Pacific Ocean, and his crew was the first to sail around the world. Magellan's voyage is said to have proved that the Earth was round.

Magellan was also the first to sail through the Strait of Magellan, so it was named after him. Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines, on April 27, 1521, in Mactan during a battle with the natives after he was accused of stealing.

Charles V of Spain provided him with five ships for the voyage round the world. Only one ship, the Victoria, completed the voyage.

Early life and travels

Magellan was born in 1480. His birthplace is recorded as either Sabrosa or Porto in Portugal. He worked in the royal court.

Since his parents were members of the Portuguese nobility, after their deaths, Magellan became a page for the queen at the age of ten.

In the royal court, he learned many important skills, including cartography (map-making), navigation, and astronomy.

In 1505, when he was 25, Magellan joined the navy. When he worked for Portugal, he went to many parts of the world, such as India, the Spice Islands, East Africa, and Morocco. When in Morocco in 1513, Magellan was wounded, causing him to limp for the rest of his life. After he lost his job for the King of Portugal, he went to work for the King of Spain.

He was married to Beatriz Barbosa and had two children: Rodrigo and Carlos.

Spanish search of the Spice Islands

The aim of Christopher Columbus's voyage to the West was to reach the coasts of the Spice Islands (or the Indies) and to establish trade between Spain and the several Asian kingdoms. The Spanish soon realized after Columbus's voyages that the lands of the Americas were not a part of Asia, but a new continent.

When Magellan arrived at the Court of Spain, he presented King Charles V a plan which would give the ships of the Crown of Castile full access to the lands of the Spice Islands.

On August 10, 1519, five ships under Magellan's command left Seville and traveled west from the Guadalquivir River to Sanlúcar de Barrameda at the mouth of the river, where they remained for more than five weeks. Magellan set sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with about 270 men on September 20.

After stopping at the Canary Islands, Magellan arrived at Cape Verde, where he set a course for Cape St. Augustine in Brazil. On November 27, the expedition crossed the equator; on December 6, the crew sighted South America.

Since Brazil was Portuguese territory, Magellan avoided it, and on December 13 anchored near present-day Rio de Janeiro, where they resupplied. They continued to sail south along South America's east coast, looking for the strait that Magellan believed would lead to the Spice Islands. The fleet reached Río de la Plata on January 10, 1520.

On March 30, the crew established a settlement that they called Puerto San Julian.

On April 2, a mutiny involving two of the ship captains broke out, but it was unsuccessful because the crew remained loyal to Magellan. Some of the captains involved in the mutiny were executed; years later, their bones were found by Sir Francis Drake.

The journey resumed. The ship Santiago was sent down the coast on a scouting expedition but was wrecked in a sudden storm. All of its crew survived and made it safely to shore. Two of them returned, traveling on land, to let Magellan know what had happened and to help rescue their comrades. After this experience, Magellan decided to wait for a few weeks more before continuing the voyage.

At 52°S latitude on October 21, the fleet reached Cape Virgenes and they decided they had found the passage because even though they went deep inland, the water was still brine (salty). Four ships began the hard trip through the 373-mile (600 km) passage that Magellan called the Estrecho (Canal) de Todos los Santos ("All Saints' Channel") because the fleet traveled through it on November 1, or All Saints' Day. The strait is now named the Strait of Magellan.

Magellan first assigned the ships Concepción and San Antonio to explore the strait. The San Antonio deserted and returned to Spain on November 20, leaving three ships: Concepción, Trinidad, and Victoria.

Magellan was the first European to reach Tierra del Fuego just east of the Pacific side of the strait.

On November 28, the three ships entered the South Pacific. Magellan named the waters the Mar Pacifico (Pacific Ocean) because it looked so still.

Heading northwest, the crew reached the equator on February 13, 1521. On March 6, they reached the Marianas and Guam. Magellan called Guam the "Island of Sails" because they saw a lot of sailboats. They renamed it to "Ladrones Island" (Island of Thieves) because many of Trinidad' s small boats were stolen there.

On March 16, Magellan reached the island of Homonhon in the Philippines, with 150 crew left, and became the first European to reach the Philippines.

Magellan was able to communicate with the native people because his Malay interpreter, Enrique, could understand their language. Enrique was an indentured servant of Magellan. Magellan and his crew traded gifts with Rajah Kolambu of Limasawa, who guided them to Cebu on April 7.

Rajah Humabon of Cebu was friendly to Magellan, and he and his queen, Juana, even accepted Christianity. Afterward, Humabon and his rival Datu Zula convinced Magellan to go kill their enemy, Lapu-Lapu, on Mactan.

Magellan wanted to convert Lapu-Lapu to Christianity. On the morning of April 17, 1521, Magellan sailed to Mactan with an army of men. During the resulting Battle of Mactan against indigenous forces led by Lapu-Lapu, Magellan was killed.

In his will, Magellan said that Enrique, his interpreter, was to be freed upon his death. However, the remaining ships' masters refused to free Enrique. Enrique escaped on May 1.

Circumnavigation and return

Because so many men died in the Philippines, it left the expedition with too few men to sail the three remaining ships.

On May 2, they abandoned Concepción and burned it to make sure the ship could not be used against them. This left them with two ships, Trinidad and Victoria, that fled westward to Palawan. They left that island on June 21 and were guided to Brunei, Borneo, by Moro pilots who knew how to travel on the shallow seas.

The ships anchored off the shore of Brunei for 35 days, where they saw the splendor of Rajah Siripada's court ( gold, two pearls the size of hens' eggs, etc.). They saw that Brunei also had tame elephants and an armament of 62 cannons, more than 5 times the cannons of Magellan's ships. They also had things such as porcelain and eyeglasses, which were not available or only just becoming available in Europe.

After reaching the Maluku Islands (the Spice Islands) on November 6, 115 crew were left. They managed to trade with the Sultan of Tidore, a rival of the Sultan of Ternate, who was the ally of the Portuguese.

The two remaining ships, packed with valuable spices, tried to return to Spain by sailing west. However, as they left the Spice Islands, Trinidad began to take on water. The crew tried to discover and repair the leak but failed. Victoria sailed ahead, taking the Indian Ocean route heading west for Spain on December 21. The ship was commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano. Several weeks later, Trinidad departed and attempted to return to Spain by traveling east on the Pacific route. This attempt failed. Trinidad was captured by the Portuguese, and was eventually wrecked in a storm while at anchor under Portuguese control.

By May 6, 1522, the Victoria rounded the Cape of Good Hope, with only rice for rations. Twenty crewmen died of starvation.

On September 6, 1522, Elcano and the remaining crew of Magellan's voyage arrived in Spain aboard the last ship in the fleet, Victoria, almost exactly three years after they departed.

Magellan had not intended to circumnavigate the world. He had only wanted to find a secure way through which the Spanish ships could navigate to the Spice Islands. It was Elcano who, after Magellan's death, decided to push westward and completed the first voyage around the entire Earth.

In total, approximately 232 Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, English, and German sailors died on the expedition around the world with Magellan.

Magellan's expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe and the first to navigate the strait in South America connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Magellan's crew observed several animals that were entirely new to European science, including a " camel without humps," which could have been a llama, guanaco, vicuña, or alpaca. They called a penguin a black " goose" that had to be skinned instead of plucked.

Two of the closest galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds, were discovered by crew members in the southern hemisphere. The full extent of the Earth was also realized, since their voyage was 14,460 leagues, or 43,400 mi (69,800 km).

Finally, the need for an International Date Line was established. Upon their return, the crew observed a mismatch of one day between their calendars and those who did not travel, even though they faithfully maintained their ship's log. However, they did not have clocks accurate enough to observe the variation in the length of the day during the journey. News of the mismatched day caused great excitement at the time. People traveled to the Pope to explain this oddity to him.

Ferdinand Magellan quotes

"It is a blessed thing that in every age someone has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions."

"Let us risk the wildest places, lest we go down in comfort and despair."

"The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore."

Interesting facts about Ferdinand Magellan

Magellan was ten years old when his parents died.

His father had been the mayor of his hometown and they were members of Portuguese nobility.

Magellan's home country of Portugal considered him a traitor because he left Portugal to begin working for the king of Spain.

Portugal tried to stop Magellan on his trip to the Spice Islands using a different route than Portugal had established.

Magellan's expedition included sailors from many different countries.

There were two mutinies on the expedition.

Magellan is given credit for having given the Pacific Ocean its name. Mar Pacifico means "peaceful sea" in Portuguese.

After Magellan's death, Juan Sebastian Elcano finished the voyage back to Spain, bringing 381 sacks of cloves with him. This was more than the worth of the five ships that left for the Spice Islands.

Images for kids

House where Magellan lived, in Sabrosa, Portugal

Magellan's voyages; the double line represents Magellan's trip from Portugal to the Moluccas. The single line traces his long, continuous voyage from Spain to the Philippines.

Magellan's Cross in present day Cebu

The original image of Santo Niño de Cebú, an image of the Child Jesus given by Magellan to the Cebuanos, now enshrined at the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño

A 1561 map of America showing Magellan's name for the Pacific, Mare pacificum, and the Strait of Magellan, labeled Frenum Magaliani

In Spanish: Fernando de Magallanes para niños

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lee-Berger

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Lee Berger, (born December 22, 1965, Shawnee Mission, Kansas, U.S.), American-born South African paleoanthropologist known for the discovery of the fossil skeletons of Australopithecus sediba, a primitive hominin species that some paleontologists believe is the most plausible link between the australopithecenes (genus Australopithecus) and humans (genus ).

Berger was raised in Sylvania and Savannah, Georgia. After he received a B.A. in anthropology from Georgia Southern University in 1989, he studied under noted South African paleoanthropoligist Phillip V. Tobias at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Berger received a Ph.D. in paleoanthropology from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1994 and became a postdoctoral research fellow in the university's department of anatomy and human biology in 1995. Between 1996 and 1997, Berger served as the director of the university's paleoanthropology research group in the School of Anatomical Sciences.

He briefly returned to the United States during the late 1990s, accepting adjunct professorships in the anthropology departments of Duke University (1997) and the University of Arkansas (1998). In 1999, however, he became the director of the Palaeoanthropology Unit for Research and Exploration at the Bernard Price Institute of Palaeontology at the University of the Witwatersrand. From 2004 he served as a reader in human evolution and the public understanding of science at the Institute for Human Evolution and the School of Geosciences at the university.

Berger's early research involved examinations of the morphology of A. africanus. He was part of the team that made the first discovery of A. africanus at the Gladysvale Cave site near Sterkfontein in South Africa. In 1995 he and a colleague published a paper hypothesizing that the "Taung child," a fossil 2.3 million to 2.8 million years old of A. africanus, previously thought to have been killed by a predatory mammal, may have been killed by a bird of prey.

During a vacation with his family in 2006, Berger explored the Ucheliungs Cave in Palau and discovered the bones of a group of small-bodied humans. In his controversial follow-up research, he suggested that many of the skeletal characteristics of the remains were too primitive to occur in genus Homo, whereas other scientists claimed that the remains belonged to a pygmy population of .

In 2008, during a fossil-hunting expedition to the Malapa Caves in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site near Johannesburg, Berger's nine-year-old son, Matthew, discovered a fossilized jawbone and collarbone belonging to a juvenile male hominin; Berger noted the mix of primitive and modern characteristics in one of the specimen's canine teeth. Shortly thereafter Berger discovered the partial skeleton of an adult female that possessed similar features. The partial skeleton, labeled MH2, has become recognized as the most complete early hominin skeleton known. The well-preserved bones found at the site included a pelvis, a foot, a complete right hand, and two skulls.

A closer examination of the remains revealed that they possessed a combination of apelike and humanlike features; the specimens also displayed more features in common with the earliest members of Homo than any other australopithecine species. Berger and colleagues named this new species A. sediba after the word in the Sesotho language meaning "fountain" or "wellspring." Uranium dating determined that the remains were between 1.78 million and 1.95 million years old. When this technique was combined with paleomagnetic dating (the calculation of a rock's age by comparing the magnetic orientation of the iron within it to that in surrounding rocks), the specimens were determined to be approximately 1,977,000 years old. The results raised the possibility that A. sediba may have been an ancestor to . Furthermore, the age of the specimens and the collection of features they shared with Homo may either allow A. sediba to become a possible transitional species that links Australopithecus with Homo or confirm it as a contemporary of the true transitional form.

In 2013 and 2014 Berger and colleagues excavated skeletal remains from a deep recess in the Rising Star cave system near the Swartkrans World Heritage Site in South Africa. The remains totaled more than 1,500 fossil specimens belonging to a new species that he and his team named . As first described in a 2015 paper, H. naledi was shown to share morphological traits in common with members of Australopithecus and Homo. In 2017 Berger published the book Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story (cowritten with John Hawks).

Berger received the first annual National Geographic Society Prize for Research and Exploration in 1997. He served as the secretary for the Royal Society of South Africa in 1996 and 1997 and was a founding trustee of the Jane Goodall Trust, South Africa. He became a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2001.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lee Berger | Biography, Discovery, & Facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Lee Berger, American-born South African paleoanthropologist known for the discovery of the fossil skeletons of Australopithecus sediba.

# data[].attributes.headline
Fay Cooper Cole- Field Museum Anthropologists

# data[].attributes.subject
Fay Cooper Cole- Field Museum Anthropologists

# data[].attributes.body
https://philippines.fieldmuseum.org/heritage/narrative/4705

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The majority of the objects in the Philippine collection were acquired by anthropologists Fay-Cooper Cole, William Jones, and Stephen C. Simms in the first decade of the 20th century. The Museum's involvement with the Philippines came after the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, where objects and peoples from the colonies of several nations were on display. The Philippines, a U.S. colony since the Spanish-American War of 1898, was featured prominently in the exposition as "a fair within a fair." Robert F. Cummings, a grain merchant from Clifton, Illinois, was greatly intrigued by the Philippine exhibition and approached the Museum with a proposition: he was willing to fund extensive anthropological research in the Philippines with two apparent provisions: that the people of Illinois should benefit and that the work should begin immediately. Cummings pledged no less than $20,000 to cover all expenses of fieldwork. In return, the Museum guaranteed to bear the costs of setting up a large permanent Philippine exhibition.

These Philippine expeditions led by Fay-Cooper Cole were quite successful. He collected over 5,000 objects from various areas of the Philippines. Williams Jones, however, was not so fortunate. He was killed by Ilongots during an expedition in March of 1909, while in the Caraballo Mountains of eastern Luzon Island. The reasons and motives surrounding his death remain unclear. After news of the death reached Chicago, Stephen C. Simms traveled to Luzon to complete the work begun by Jones.

By the end of December 1911, all of the objects, photographs, recordings, and notes were in Chicago. The collection consists of correspondence, mainly between the Curator of Anthropology of the Museum, the sponsor of the expedition, and the members of the expedition, maps of the places visited, hand-written notes by the members of the expedition, specimen lists, notebooks, an expense list, a list of photos, and physical measurements.

Fay-Cooper Cole (1881-1961)

Fay-Cooper Cole was an American anthropologist who became an authority of the peoples of the Malay Archipelago and promoted modern archaeology. He was born on August 8, 1881, in Plainwell, Michigan, and graduated in 1903 from Northwestern University. In 1904, Cole joined the staff as Assistant Curator of Anthropology of The Field Museum, where he worked until 1923. He pursued post-graduate studies at the University of Chicago, University of Berlin, and Columbia University, where he received his PhD in 1914. His dissertation, A Study of Tinguian Folklore, compared the old culture reflected in Tinguian myths with the culture of present-day Tinguians and demonstrated the changes that had taken place. Cole's fieldwork included assignments in the Philippines and Indonesia for The Field Museum where he became assistant curator of Malayan ethnology and physical anthropology. In 1924, he worked for the University of Chicago, where he helped to establish their graduate program in Anthropology. Cole was a popular teacher and lecturer who taught coursesin nearly every field of anthropology except linguistics. He became interested in the field of Midwestern archaeology and instituted an archeological survey of Illinois. Cole wrote popular accounts of human evolution and the growth of culture, including The Long Road from Savagery to Civilization (1933) and The Story of Man (1937) with Mabel Cook Cole. He became professor emeritus in 1948, and died on September 3, 1961, in Santa Barbara, California.

Stephen Chapman Simms (1863-1937)

S.C. Simms was the assistant curator of ethnology for The Field Museum. In 1894, he was hired as a preparator at The Field Museum in the Department of Geology and became an assistant curator in the Department of Industrial Arts. From 1899 to 1912, Simms served as assistant curator of ethnology in the Department of Anthropology. He made field trips to Alberta, Arizona, California, Montana, Minnesota, Kansas, and the Philippines. Simms was the director of The Field Museum from 1928 until his death in 1937.

William Jones (1871-1909)

William Jones, a member of the Fox nation, was the first Native American to receive a PhD in Anthropology. Born in Oklahoma on March 28, 1871, he studied at Hampton Institute, graduated from Phillips Academy, and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard. After completing his studies with Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1904, Jones became a specialist in Algonquian languages, known for his extensive collection of Algonquian texts. In 1908, while employed as an assistant curator at The Field Museum, he went to the Philippines, where he spent his time with the Ilongots. He was assassinated in March 1909, at Dumobato on the east side of Luzon.

Mabel Cook Cole (1880-1923)

Mabel Cook Cole was an anthropologist and writer. Born in Plano, Illinois, on April 18, 1880, she graduated from Northwestern University in 1903 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Along with Margaret Mead she was a charter member of the Women's Anthropological Group. She married Fay-Cooper Cole before his first expedition to the Philippines. Together, they spent four years among the indigenous people of the the Philippines. They had one son, Lamont Cook Cole, a scientist who specialized in social history, population regulation, and ecology. Mabel's books include The Story of Primitive Man, The Story of Man, Savage Gentlemen, and Philippine Folk Tales.

Laura Watson Benedict (1861-1932)

Laura Watson Benedict was born in 1861. She was the first anthropologist to travel to the Philippines to study the Bagobo people. In 1910, the American Museum of Natural History purchased Benedict's 2,534-piece collection for $4,000. Four years later in 1916, she became the first woman to earn a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University with a dissertation entitled, Bagobo Ceremonial Magic and Myth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Anthropological Expedition Philippines | The Field Museum

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Hernando de Soto

Spanish explorer and conquistador, Hernando de Soto, who conquered Peru, part of Central America, and explored southeastern North America. The Mariners' Museum E125.S7 W7 Rare

Introduction
Hernando de Soto is more known for being a conquistador. He helped conquer many lands in parts of Central and South America, including those of the Inca Empire. But he was also an explorer. De Soto explored and mapped parts of nine states in the southeastern part of the United States. His explorations took him from present day Florida up to North Carolina, and west of the Mississippi River. History recognizes his great achievement of being first recorded European to discover and cross the Mississippi River.

Biography Hernando de Soto's exact date of birth is unknown. He was born sometime between 1496 and 1501 in Jerez de los Caballeros, Spain. This was a small town in the Estremadura region. His parents were Francisco Mendez de Soto and Leonor Arias Tinoco. They were thought to have been of minor nobility, meaning they were neither rich nor poor.
Early Life
¹ Hernando had an older brother named Juan, and two younger sisters: Catalina and Maria. Young Hernando would have received a standard education that included subjects like math and history. His parents hoped he would become a priest or lawyer, but de Soto had more interest in adventure. ² Hernando would need to learn a trade because his brother Juan, being the eldest son, would inherit their parent's land and money when the died. Hernando would get nothing. In 1514, Hernando was sent by his father to the port city of Seville, Spain. Here, young de Soto began working for a man named Pedro Árias Dávila (he was also known as Pedrarias Dávila). Under Dávila, Hernando de Soto would get his first opportunity to sail to distant places for adventure. In 1514, de Soto joined Dávila's expedition to the New World.

Also on this journey was another man who would become famous for his explorations of the Southwest United States - Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. ³ Dávila had been appointed the new governor of Darién, Panama in what would become Central America. This land had been previously conquered by the conquistador Vasco Nuñez Balboa. Dávila's crew set sail April 11, 1514 with a fleet of 20 ships and about 200 people. ⁴ They crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed in the rainforests of Central America. It took about two months to get there. These areas were already inhabited by native people who had previously encountered Spaniards. These encounters usually resulted in the Spanish soldiers enslaving and killing the natives, so the native people feared them. Hernando de Soto would also partake in deadly invasions. Hernando led many raids against the indigenous people, and his reputation as a brave soldier grew. He became a captain by 1520. As Dávila's representative, de Soto was allowed to explore Central America in search of treasure and land. Among the areas he explored in the 1520s were modern day Costa Rica and Honduras. De Soto conquered Nicaragua in 1524, and was soon was made the alcade - or mayor - in León. But de Soto was not satisfied for long. He still wanted more adventure. This opportunity came was he learned that Francisco Pizarro was planning an exploration of the northwestern Pacific coast of South America. ⁵

Voyages In 1530, Hernando de Soto signed on with Pizarro's expedition to explore more of Central and South America. De Soto departed Nicaragua in 1531 and soon joined joined Francisco Pizarro in Peru. At this time, the land was inhabited by the Inca Empire. Over the next several years, de Soto would play a heavy role in the conquering of the Inca civilization. Not only did the Spaniards have superior weapons, but plagues and diseases infected the Inca, causing their army numbers to fall. They captured Atahualpa, chief of the Incas, and Pizarro picked de Soto as his representative to the Inca ruler. Atahualpa had great wealth, so to gain his freedom he gave de Soto and the Spaniards much silver and gold. But Pizarro executed him anyway, and they kept the riches for themselves. De Soto received the third largest portion of wealth, after Francisco Pizarro and his brother Hernando.
Principal Voyage
⁶ After this, de Soto marched onto and conquered the Inca capital city of Cuzco. He was the first European to enter this city. ⁷ He captured the city, and claimed many of the riches for himself. Now a very wealthy man de Soto sailed from Peru in 1535, reaching Spain once more in 1536.

During his time in Spain, he married Isabel de Bobilla, daughter of Pedrarias Dávila. Despite having a new wife and a home in Spain, de Soto grew restless. He wanted to be a governor like Pizarro. He petitioned Emperor Carlos V for lands in either Ecuador, Guatemala, or Colombia. All three requests were denied. But the crown soon granted him the right to go and conquer and govern the territory La Florida. This area would eventually become the state of Florida we know today. For the next few years, de Soto and his men would go on to explore what would become the southeastern United States. De Soto departed Spain on his flagship San Cristóbal in April 1538. He took with him about 600 men, and numerous horses, dogs, and pigs. De Soto had been granted governorship of Havana, Cuba. They stopped there to take control of the colony. The expedition sailed for La Florida May 18, 1539 and landed near modern day Tampa Bay on May 25. ⁸ The began moving north, and then northwest. They stopped at the Apalachee town of Anhaica - near present day Tallahassee - in early fall. They stayed here through winter. It would be several months before de Soto's expedition would continue onward.

Subsequent Voyages They began their journey of exploration once more in spring 1540. When de Soto and his team set off again, they moved more north east towards present day Georgia. After this came what would become the Carolinas. They soon crossed the Appalachian Mountains into present day Tennessee and traced the Tennessee River Valley. Finding no gold, they turned south, heading into present day Alabama. They arrived at a town called Mobila (near present day Mobile) where they fought with the natives who lived there.
⁹ Afterwards, they turned northwest out of Alabama and into present day Mississippi. Here another battle took place in which the Spaniards fought off the natives. Soon after, they made camp, and spent the winter in Mississippi. They continued on several months after, and in May 1541, de Soto and his men came upon the Mississippi River. They built rafts and crossed the river. Hernando de Soto and his expedition became the first Europeans to see and cross the mighty Mississippi River.

Later Years and Death After the crossing, the expedition headed into modern day Arkansas. They would spend the next year in Arkansas looking for gold and other mineral riches. Finding none, they soon returned across the Mississippi River. It was not long after the return crossing the de Soto was struck with a fever and fell deathly ill. He never recovered. Hernando de Soto died May 21, 1542.
¹⁰ His crew continued on without their fearless leader, eventually reaching a Spanish settlement in New Spain (present day Mexico). ¹¹

Legacy
Hernando de Soto's expedition was one of the most elaborate efforts made by the Spanish to explore the interior of North America. De Soto's and his men were the first to thoroughly explore most of the southern half of the modern United States. He is credited as being the first European to discover and cross the great Mississippi River. It is important to note the unfortunate negative impact made by the Spanish explorer. The indigenous peoples encountered by de Soto and his men were exposed to European diseases such as measles, smallpox and chickenpox, for which they had no immunity, causing massive loss of life amongst the Native Americans. Nevertheless, de Soto's records and maps not only greatly added to Europe's knowledge of the New World but also provided information on the practices and culture of Native Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans.

1. Peggy Pancella, Hernando de Soto (Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2004) 6.

2. Peggy Pancella, Hernando de Soto, 7.

3. Gloria A. Young and Michael P. Hoffman, eds., Expedition of Hernando de Soto West of the Mississippi, 1541-1543: Symposia (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 1993), 14.

4. Amie Hazleton, Hernando de Soto: An Explorer of the Southeast (North Mankato: Capstone Press, 2017), 9.

5. Charles Hudson, Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1997), 40.

6. Hudson, Knights of Spain, 42.

7. Hazelton, Hernando de Soto, 18.

8. Young and Hoffman, Expedition of Hernando de Soto, 21-22.

9. Young and Hoffman, Expedition of Hernando de Soto, 22.

10. Hudson, Knights of Spain, 349.

11. Young and Hoffman, Expedition of Hernando de Soto, 22.

Bibliography

Pancella, Peggy. Hernando de Soto. Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2004.

Young, Gloria A. and Michael P. Hoffman, eds. Expedition of Hernando de Soto West of the Mississippi, 1541-1543: Symposia. Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 1993.

Hazleton, Amie. Hernando de Soto: An Explorer of the Southeast. North Mankato: Capstone Press, 2017..

Hudson, Charles. Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1997.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hernando de Soto mapped much of the southern half of the modern United States, from Florida to North Carolina and west to the Mississippi River.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Mrs. Marco Polo of the Americas," as Harriet Chalmers Adams was known, made a name for herself as one of National Geographic 's most accomplished writers and explorers of the 20th century. She was a self-made, self-taught geographer, anthropologist, and photographer who became an expert on post-colonial South America.

Background

Harriet Chalmers Adams lived an adventurous childhood, getting dirty, swimming, riding horses, and engaging in grueling long-distance hikes. "Before I was 14, I had completed on horseback, the exploration of the entire Sierra Nevada Mountain chain with my father," she explained in an interview. This set the tone for the rest of her young adult years.

Her father stopped her formal schooling and assigned private tutors instead so she could continue to learn from her experiences on the road. But her life as a traveler truly began in the 1900s after she married electrician Franklin Pierce Adams. With him, she embarked on expeditions to South America that lasted years.

Travels

These expeditions took them through jungles, deserts, high mountain passes, and along ancient rivers. The couple traveled in a variety of ways through every country on the continent, from boat to horseback, for over 64,000km. Because of her unconventional activities, she often wore men's clothing to make life on the road easier.

News outlets in America caught wind of her travels and wrote that she was the first white woman to pass through some of these extremely remote areas.

Adams documented the traditions and customs of many South American groups and explored the past and present impact of Spanish colonialism.

According to National Geographic, she was the first woman to travel from the Amazon to French Guyana, as well as climb the El Misti in Peru. She also branched off to Caribbean islands like Trinidad, Cuba, and Haiti and visited Native American reservations in the United States.

While in Haiti, she smuggled a few species of rat to zoos in the United States. She also did a brief stint in Portugal, and traveled through France, Gibraltar, Egypt, Somaliland, Iraq and Sudan, Mongolia, Japan, Hawaii, China, and the Pacific.

Writing career

During her travels, she developed a love of photography and became a pioneer in documenting now-vanished cultures. By the end of her career, she had taken over 3,000 photographs and was in high demand as a lecturer. Often, she packed lecture theaters with audiences of over 1,000. However, much of her fame came from her contributions to National Geographic magazine.

She wrote 21 articles for the legendary publication. Her pieces described the geography, languages, history, and even - a rarity in the publication - her own socio-political commentary. For example, she writes, "What blessing has European civilization brought to them, which they did not already enjoy? What have they not suffered in the name of the cross which surmounts the hill?"

She vividly described living with the natives, cheerfully sleeping on dirt floors of huts or in the open, and eating what the locals ate. "In all things, [we] accommodated ourselves to the country customs," she wrote.

These travels culminated in an offer from the French government to be a war correspondent on the front line during World War I. She wrote for Harper's magazine about trench warfare, battles, and the new female workforce. She was one of the few to be granted this opportunity.

Despite her accomplishments, The Explorers Club denied her entry and monetary support for her expeditions. They still asked her to lecture at the club and she continued to have a cordial relationship with them.

However, other organizations sought her expertise. She was the third woman to join the Royal Geographic Society. Opportunities to foster community continued to emerge and she established the Woman Geographers Society in 1925.

Her career came to a satisfying close with a peaceful retirement to Nice, France. She died a couple of years before World War II broke out.

Legacy

The media gave her several names: "world's greatest woman explorer", "confidant of savage head hunters," [groan], and "Mrs. Marco Polo of the Americas."

Some believe that Adams has not received the recognition she deserves because of her gender. Writer Kathryn Davis noted that "her lack of formal education and professional training diminished her credibility, and the absence of book-length publications decreased her sense of permanence."

Still, thanks to her writings, observations, photographs, and persistence in establishing herself and other women in exploration, the world gained a wealth of knowledge on former European colonies and their ways of life.

John Oliver La Gorce, one of the editors of National Geographic, even called her "the foremost traveler and writer in the United States."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Great Explorers: Harriet Chalmers Adams " Explorersweb

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
'Mrs. Marco Polo of the Americas,' as Harriet Chalmers Adams was known, was one of the most accomplished writers and explorers of the 20th century.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Harriet Chalmers Adams was a leading American explorer, journalist, and geographer who traveled over 100,000 miles (160,000 km) in South America. Her expertise on Latin America was valued by private industry, the government as well as academia. She lectured for over twenty years with a National Geographic series and wrote for the National Geographic Magazine. She was one of the first American women in the Royal Geographic Society. Adams was called the "Mrs. Marco Polo of the Americas," and the "world's greatest woman explorer."

Adams was born on October 22, 1875, in Stockton, CA. She spent much of her childhood exploring with her father, reading, and taking private tutoring lessons. Later in life she said that the explorations with her father changed her "over from a domestic little girl fond of knitting and skipping rope to one who wished to go to the ends of the earth and to see and study the people of all lands." Adams mastered languages such as Spanish and French, as well as Portuguese, Italian, and German.

In 1889, Adams married Franklin Pierce Adams. In the early 1900s they traveled out of the San Francisco Bay area on a steamer to South America. They visited each country in South America mainly on horseback, but also on train and by boat. During their more than 40,000 miles (6,4000 km) across Latin America she kept a journal tracking the nearly three-year long trip. In 1907, upon their return, Adams gave her first lecture at National Geographic which started her 30-year career writing more than 20 stories for National Geographic magazine.

Adams set a goal to visit every country that was or had been a Spanish colony. She followed Christopher Columbus's trip from Europe throughout the Americas. She observed the impact of Spanish colonialism in South America which sparked her research interests. She sought to understand the social, economic, and cultural implications of colonization on the post-colonial world. She also visited Native American reservations throughout the United States to learn about the linguistic and cultural similarities/differences among tribes of North and South America. Her writing was controversial for the time as she criticized the impact of colonialism on Native Americans, like the Quechuas. Adams met with 20 indigenous tribes on the continent and according to the New York Times, she was likely the first white female to do so. Later, she expanded her anthropological findings of human migration by following Ferdinand Magellan's sailing route from Spain to the Philippines.

During World War I, Adams was the only female war correspondent for Harper's Magazine in Europe. The work involved visiting the trenches on the French front lines, American hospitals, and munition plants where women replaced men during fighting. She was the first female to visit and photograph battle scenes in the French trenches.

Adams was the third American woman asked to join the Royal Geographical Society in England. In 1925, she helped create the Woman Geographers Society and served as their first president. During her tenure, she recruited members from 39 countries and led the organization until she moved to France in 1933.

Harriet Chalmers Adams passed away in Nice, France on July 17, 1937, at age 61. She was buried in the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, CA. "There is no reason why a woman cannot go wherever a man goes, and further," Adams said in 1920. "If a woman be fond of travel, if she has love of the strange, the mysterious and the lost, there is nothing that will keep her at home..."

Fact Check: We love accuracy. If something looks incorrect, please contact us and let us know.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Harriet Chalmers Adams - Women in Exploration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Harriet Chalmers Adams was a leading American explorer, journalist, and geographer who traveled over 100,000 miles (160,000 km) in South America. Her expertise on Latin America was valued by private industry, the government as well as academia. She lectured for over twenty years with a National Geographic series and wrote for the National Geographic Magazine.