Explorers

This double-edged iron sword was found in Denmark’s Tisso Lake.

The Vikings’ Bad Boy Reputation Is Back With a Vengeance

A major new exhibition is reviving the Norse seafarers’ iconic image as rampagers and pillagers

Did the English discover Canada's west coast hundreds of years before it was officially charted by Spanish explorer Juan Perez?

Francis Drake May Have Discovered Western Canada Hundreds of Years Earlier, Kept Quiet About It

The discovery of a 16th century coin is threatening the story of British Columbia's history

The Shackleton expedition's scientist, Alexander Stevens, stands on one of the team's ships, the Aurora.

A Century-Old Roll of Undeveloped Film Was Just Found in Antarctica

A century-old set of negatives was found in an Antarctic supply hut

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Shackleton Probably Never Took Out an Ad Seeking Men for a Hazardous Journey

The famous tale of how Ernest Shackleton put together his Antarctic expedition is probably a myth

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes / He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men / Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— / Silent, upon a peak in Darién. —John Keats

Following in the Footsteps of Balboa

The first European to glimpse the Pacific from the Americas crossed Panama on foot 500 years ago. Our intrepid author retraces his journey

George Fabian Lawrence, better known as “Stoney Jack,” parlayed his friendships with London navvies into a stunning series of archaeological discoveries between 1895 and 1939.

The Commoner Who Salvaged a King’s Ransom

A furtive antiquarian nicknamed Stoney Jack was responsible for almost every major archaeological find made in London between 1895 and 1939

Galaxy M106 as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

How Edwin Hubble Became the 20th Century’s Greatest Astronomer

The young scientist demolished the old guard's ideas on the nature and size of the universe

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White Gold: How Salt Made and Unmade the Turks and Caicos Islands

Turks and Caicos had one of the world's first, and largest, salt industries

Geronimo as a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, 1898

Geronimo’s Appeal to Theodore Roosevelt

Held captive far longer than his surrender agreement called for, the Apache warrior made his case directly to the president

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The Unsolved Mystery of the Tunnels at Baiae

Did ancient priests fool visitors to a sulfurous subterranean stream that they had crossed the River Styx and entered Hades?

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The Neverending Hunt for Utopia

Through centuries of human suffering, one vision has sustained: a belief in a terrestrial arcadia

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The Woman Who Took on the Tycoon

John D. Rockefeller Sr. epitomized Gilded Age capitalism. Ida Tarbell was one of the few willing to hold him accountable

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The Loneliest Shop in the World

The original lifeboat, the James Caird, built in 1914, had an open top, exposing its inhabitants to the elements.

Reliving Shackleton's Epic Endurance Expedition

Tim Jarvis's Plan to Cross the Antarctic in an Exact Replica of the James Caird

Captain Lawrence "Titus" Oates with ponies

Sacrifice Amid the Ice: Facing Facts on the Scott Expedition

Captain Lawrence Oates wrote that if Robert Scott's team didn't win the race to the South Pole, "we shall come home with our tails between our legs"

The last photo of Mawson's Far Eastern Party, taken when they left the Australasian Antarctic Party's base camp on November 10, 1912. By January 10, 1913, two of the three men would be dead, and expedition leader Douglas Mawson would find himself exhausted, ill and still more than 160 miles from the nearest human being.

The Most Terrible Polar Exploration Ever: Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic Journey

A century ago, Douglas Mawson saw his two companions die and found himself stranded in the midst of Antarctic blizzards

“It is splendid to have people who refuse to recognise difficulties,” British Capt. Robert Falcon Scott wrote early in the expedition to the South Pole. But they would after they set out from the pole.

The Doomed South Pole Voyage's Remaining Photographs

A 1912 photograph proves explorer Captain Robert Scott reached the South Pole—but wasn't the first

Amundsen at the South Pole, one hundred years ago today

The Path of Exploration

Henry Morton Stanley, photographed in 1872 at age 31, is best known for his epic search for the missionary David Livingstone, whom he finally encountered in 1871 in present-day Tanzania.

Henry Morton Stanley's Unbreakable Will

The explorer of Dr. Livingstone-fame provides a classic character study of how willpower works

Port Louis, Mauritius, in the first half of the 19th century

Naval Gazing: The Enigma of Étienne Bottineau

In 1782, an unknown French engineer offered an invention better than radar: the ability to detect ships hundreds of miles away

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