| Brooke Bond | PG Tips Tea Cards of 50 great Great stories of trail blazing and discovery | Adventurers And Explorers


	01 John de Piano Carpini c. 1180-1252. Italian Illustrated: Carpini and Mongols crossing the Russian steppe. Sent as the Pope's ambassador to the Mongols, Carpini was the first European to describe the vast steppe country of Central Asia. More than 60 years old when he started out on Easter Day 1245, this Franciscan friar withstood the bitter cold of the Siberian winter as he travelled to the court of the Great Khan (Emperor) in Mongolia. On his return he wrote A History of the Tartars, describing their customs, such as drinking mare's milk, and how they had become the finest cavalry of their day
	02 Marco Polo 1254-1324. Venetian. Illustrated: Marco Polo presented at court to Kublai Khan. 17 years old when he began his travels with his uncle and father, Marco Polo crossed the Persian desert, climbed the Pamirs, and finally reached the court of the great Khan, Kublai, near Peking. Travelling about China he observed the use of paper money, coal, and the huge Chinese cities. 24 years later when he returned to Venice, few people believed his descriptions. But asked on his deathbed to recant, Marco answered "I have not told half of what I saw".
	03 Leif Ericsson, tenth century A.D. Norseman. . Illustrated: Vikings on a shore raid. 'Leif the Lucky' Ericsson was the first European to make a deliberate voyage to North America. From the Viking settlement in Greenland he set out in 986 A.D. to investigate rumours of a new land to the west. He reached a country where wild grapes grew (perhaps Newfoundland) which he named Vinland and spent the winter there. On his return to Greenland, news of his discovery attracted later expeditions, one of which stayed three years in Vinland until native attacks forced them to leave, never to return.
	04 Ibn Batuta 1304-1368. Arab. Illustrated: Batuta's caravan in a sandstorm. Remarkable even among a nation of long-distance travellers, Ibn Batuta journeyed almost 75,000 miles in his lifetime, visiting Arab communities as far apart as Timbuktu and Peking. He spent thirty years of his life on his travels. His first trip was a pilgrimage to Mecca, but it awoke his wanderlust and he went on to explore the Arabian peninsula, visit the Emperor of the Golden Horde, and meet the Sultan of Delhi. Well-educated and distinguished, he had a bearing and sense of humour which made him welcome everywhere.,
	05 Francis Xavier 1506-1552. Spanish. Illustrated: Samurai warriors in Japan. Founder member of the Society of Jesus, Xavier won his title of the' Aposde of the Indies' by his missionary journeys in the Far East. Later working in India and Malaysia, he sailed to Japan to introduce Christianity there. His pioneer descriptions of the Japanese were accurate and enthusiastic. He found them 'sparing and frugal' and 'to surpass in goodness any nations lately discovered. Honour with them is placed above everything else'. After converting numbers of Japanese, Xavier set off for China to continue his work, but died before getting there.
	06 Christopher Columbus 1451-1506. Italian, employed by Spain. Illustrated: Columbus lands in America. On August 3, 1492 Columbus sailed west from Spain with three small ships, the Santa Maria (c. 100 tons), Pinta and Nina (each c. 50 tons). He had to control his mutinous crew who thought they would never see land again until, two hours after midnight on October 12 the lookout shouted that he saw land ahead. It was 1 small island, probably Guanahani in the Bahamas. There Columbus came ashore and planted the royal banner, claiming the land for Spain. He had found a New World . . . America.
	07 Vasco da Gama c. 1460-1524. Portuguese. Illustrated: Da Gama at the Cape of Good Hope. Admiral of the first fleet to reach India from Europe, Da Gama sailed from Portugal on July 8 1497. Spare parts for his fleet were standardised so that they would fit any of his three main ships, and he planned his route with great care. Deliberately steering well out into the South Atlantic to avoid adverse currents. he rounded the Cape of Good Hope on November 22, and reached the Indian port of Calicut on May 20, 1498. Da Gama had opened the long-dreamed of route to the Orient. ' .
	08 Ferdinand Magellan 1480-1521. Portuguese, employed by Spain. Illustrated : Magellan pilots his ships through the straits. Seeking a new route to the Orient, Magellan sailed from Spain on August 10 1519 with five ships and about 265 men. Only three ships finally entered the Pacific Ocean through the South American straits which he discovered and which now bear his name. Food ran out and the sailors had to eat biscuit crumbs and drink foul, yellow water. Magellan was killed by Philippine natives but one ship, Victoria, struggled home with 18 survivors, the first men to have sailed round the world.
	09 Hernan Cortes 1485-154 7. Spanish. Illustrated: Cortis meets Moctezuma. Conqueror of Mexico, Cortes was a born leader and a man prepared to take enormous risks. Later landing in Mexico he burned his fleet behind him so that his men had no possibility of retreat. Then, striking into totally unknown country, he over-awed Moctezuma, ruler of the Aztec empire. When the Aztecs resisted the invasion, Cartes defeated them quickly and ruthlessly and established a Spanish government. Finally recalled to Spain, cortes could boast to the king "I am the man who has given you more kingdoms than your ancestors left you towns".
	10 Francisco Pizarro c. 1474-1541. Spanish. Illustrated: Pizarro's men sack the Inca capital. Said to have once been a swineherd Pizarro went to the Americas as a soldier of fortune. After campaigning in Panama, he decided to explore southward, and in 153 landed on the coast of Peru with 180 men and 27 horses. Crossing the mountains, he captured the Peruvian ruler, the Inca Atahualpa, and ransomed him for a room full of gold, worth about �3 million. The Spaniards then ransacked Peru, which Pizarro ruled as governor. But after quarrelling with his lieutenants, Pizarr was murdered and Peru passed to direct Spanish rule.
	11 Francisco de Orellana c. 1511-1546. Spanish. Illustrated: Orellana's boat attacked by Amazon canoes. In 1540 Orellana and some 50 Spanish soldiers crossed the Andes and reached the headwaters of the Amazon River. Building a boat from forest trees and using nails made from old horseshoes, they hung it with awnings to ward off Indian arrows. Plagued by insects and dangerous snakes, and fighting off Indian attacks, Orellana and his men were the first to navigate the huge river they called the Amazon, after a tribe of warrior women.
	12 Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca c. 1490-c. 1557. Spanish. Illustrated: De Vaca in the desert. Shipwrecked on the Gulf coast of North America in 1528, Cabeza de Vaca and three companions were captured by the Indians. At first they were virtually enslaved, but by claiming to be medicine men they managed to pass from tribe to tribe until they finally reached safety in Mexico. The journey was an epic of endurance and survival, for much of the territory was desert and scrub, and Cabeza de Vaca and his companions had to live off desert plants and scraps of food given to them by the Indians.
	13 Sir Francis Drake c. 1543-1596. English. Illustrated: Drake raids Spanish-American shipping. The first Englishman to circumnavigate the world, Drake sailed in 1577 with the lOO ton Pelican, later re-named the Golden Hind, for the Pacific. His aim was to look for new land and, more important, to plunder the Spanish. After raiding the west coast of South America and exploring the Californian coast, he escaped pursuit by sailing across the Pacific. He returned to Plymouth on September 26, 1580 with a profit of almost �500,000. He was knighted aboard his ship at Deptford and later helped fight the Spanish Armada-
	14 John Davis c. 1550-1605. English. Illustrated: Davis among the Arctic Icebergs. Davis was one of the most skilful mariners of his day. He made several voyages in search of the North West Passage, and the Arctic Chart was given names from Davis's patrons and Devon home: Gilbert Sound, Mount Raleigh, Exeter. Sound, Tomes Road, Cape Walsingham. On one voyage Davis and his men survived by killing 14,000 penguins for the ship's larder. Davis was eventually murdered by Japanese pirates, but not before he had written Seamen's Secrets, his book on practical navigation, and invented two navigating instruments, the backstaff and Davis's quadrant.
	15 Jacques Cartier 1491-1557. French. Illustrated: Carrier claims Canada for France. One of the founders of French Canada. Jacques Cartier discovered the entrance to the St. Lawrence River in 1534, and returned to spend the winter there in 1535-6. Friendly Indians told him of a place up-river they called 'Canada', which became the name of the new land. Cartier himself named a hilltop 'Mont Real' (royal mountain). But rocks which he hoped contained gold and diamonds turned out to be worthless, and he had to be content with trade rather than settling the country he had discovered.
	16 Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la sane 1643-1687. French. Illustrated: La Salle at the Niagara Falls. Brilliant and energetic, La Sane dreamed of building a great French empire stretching front the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. He explored the area south of the Great Lakes, and was one of the earliest backwoodsmen to see the Niagara Falls. Then in 1680-82 with a party of Indians and French Canadians in canoes, he became the first man to navigate the length of the Mississippi River. He had a great pngt for dealing with the Indians of North America, and was always accompanied on his journeys by Nika, a Shawnee scout.
	17 Abel Janlzoon Tasman 1603-1659. Dutch. Illustrated: A Dutch sailor swims ashore to plant the flag. Employed by the Dutch East India Company, Tasman made several voyages to the Far East. In 1642 while exploring for new lands for trade he sighted the island of Tasmania off the south coast of Australia, later named after him. He then visited New Zealand where one of his boats was attacked by Maori natives in war canoes. Two years later Tasman also surveyed the north coast of Australia, making charts which were to be in use for the next two centuries.
	18 William Dampier 1652-1715. English. Illustrated: Buccaneers storm a merchant ship After voyages to Newfoundland and java, Dampier joined the Caribbean buccaneers and went on their pirate raids into the South Seas, as the Pacific was then called. His observations of the coasts, winds, and other natural features were so accurate that when he came back to England, he was asked to lead a government exploring expedition. This voyage was a failure, but in 1708-11 Dampier served as pilot on a privateer ship which, like Sir Francis Drake before him, sailed round the world and captured a rich Spanish ship on the way.
	19 James Cook 1728-1779. British. Illustrated : Cook's death on Hawaii. Son of a Yorkshire farmer, Cook learned his seamanship in the North Sea an, with the Royal Navy. On three voyages to the Pacific between 1768 and 1778 he proved himself a brilliant commander. He kept a cool head in emergencies - took care of his men, making sure that they regularly ate fresh meat and vegetable! including sauerkraut, so as not to contract scurvy ;and he made precise observations of the geography and peoples of New Zealand, the east coast Of Australia and the Pacific islands. He was the greatest scientific navigator of his age.
	20. Mungo Park 1771-1806. British. Illustrated: On his second expedition Park carries a British Soldier. Mungo Park was sent to Africa to investigate the mysterious river Niger. Keeping his notes in the lining of his hat, Park was captured and robbed by the Moors but saved his compass by claiming that it was magic. On July 20 1796 he finally reached the Niger. In 1805 he led a second, larger expedition to West Africa but despite his gallant efforts most of its soldier escort died of fever and Park himself vanished, perhaps drowned in the river he had discovered.
	21 Rene Caillie 1799-1838. French. Illustrated: Caillie drinking at an oasis. As a boy Caillie wanted to become an explorer after reading the adventures of Robinson Crusoe. He went to West Africa and, in disguise, joined a caravan leaving for the unknown city of Timbuktu. He had a narrow escape when fanatical tribesmen searched the caravan but failed to find Caillie hiding beneath some trade goods. After a gruelling journey across the Sahara desert, Caillie brought back to Europe the first description of Timbuktu, though the French authorities at first would not believe that any white man could have made the trip single-handed.
	22 Sir Alexander Mackenzie 1764-1820. British. Illustrated: Mackenzie and his men haul their canoes against the current A fur trader in Canada, Mackenzie made two remarkable journeys into unknown, territory . On the first, his expedition left his trading base at Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabaska and went northwards to the Arctic Ocean. The huge river he followed was named the Mackenzie River after him. His second journey took him westwards across the Canadian Rockies to the Pacific, the first crossing of North America by a white man since de Vaca (see card 12).
	23 Meriwether Lewis 1774-1809. William Clark 1770-1838. American. Illustrated: Lewis and Clark greet Plains Indians. The first Americans to cross their continent, Lewis and Clark in 1804-6 led an expedition up the Missouri River and across the Rockies to the Pacific and back. They were the first white men some Indian tribes had ever seen. Their interpreter-guide was a remarkable Shoshone Indian woman, Sacajawea, who walked nearly all the way with them carrying her papoose. For food the explorers shot deer and buffalo, though on the Pacific coast they ran out of food and were obliged to live off a dead whale washed up on the beach.
	24 Sir Richard Burton 1821-1890. British Illustrated: Burton attacked in Somaliland An outstanding Victorian adventurer, Sir Richard Burton was an explorer, daredevil and scholar. He loved travelling in disguise and in 1853 penetrated the forbidden cities of Medina and Mecca, making a sketch of the sacred stone of Islam. The next year he explored Somaliland with Speke (see card 25). Able to speak at least 29 languages, Burton even tried to discover if there was a 'monkey language' by keeping a troupe of monkeys in his house and studying their cries.
	25 John Hanning Speke 1827-1864. British. Illustrated: Speke lecturing to the Royal Geographical Society. A keen sportsman, Speke visited Africa in 1857 with Burton (see card 24) to search for the source of the Nile. Both men suffered terribly from fever, and Speke once nearly went blind. But on July 30 1858, on a side trip by himself, Speke discovered Lake Victoria which he claimed (correctly) as the Nile's main source. Burton disagreed, so in 1860 Speke returned to explore the lake more fully. Given a hero's welcome in England, Speke died in a shooting accident on the day he was to debate against Burton.
	26 David Livingstone 1813-1873. British. Illustrated: Livingstone attacked by a lion. Livingstone went to Africa as a missionary in 1840, where, in Bechuanaland, he survived mauling by a lion. He explored right across the continent, riding part of the way on ox back, and saw the Victoria Falls - 'smoke rising with a sound like thunder' as the natives called them. In 1858 he led an expedition to the Zambezi; then returned alone to Central Africa where he died of fever. Brought back by his servants, his body was recognised by the arm fractured by the lion, and buried in Westminster Abbey.
	27 Sir Henry Morton Stanley 1841-1904. American and British. Illustrated: Stanley's flotilla attacked by Congo natives. Running away from a Welsh workhouse, Stanley went to America as a cabin boy. He became a newspaperman, and was sent to Africa to find Livingstone (see card 27). They met at Ujiji on November 10 1871, when Stanley said, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Back in Africa in 1874, Stanley explored the Congo River. Twice more he returned to the 'Dark Continent', once to help found the Belgian Congo, where he was known as Bula Matari 'The Rock Breaker', and once to lead a rescue expedition into Equatoria.
	28 John McDouall Stuart 1815-1866. British. Illustrated: Stuart and a companion by a stream. Like many of Australia.s explorers Stuart had emigrated to make his life in the new country. Intrigued by the mystery of Australia's unknown heartland he made several trips on horseback into the interior looking for new pasture and a transcontinental route. Despite waterless desert and hostile aborigines Stuart finally reached the centre of Australia and placed the British flag on ' Mount Stuart' in the John Range. The difficulties of his several journeys cost him his health, but not before he had proved himself one of Australia's hardiest explorers.
	29 Alexander Yon Humboldt 1769-1859. German. Illustrated: Humboldt making scientific observations near Mount Chimborazo. Said to have been the most famous man in Europe after Napoleon, Humboldt travelled widely in South America, Europe, and Asia. His observations of natural phenomena laid the foundations of modern geography. He was interested in everything he could observe and measure scientifically: animals, plants, ocean currents (the Humboldt current off South America is named after him), geology, and climate. His collection of specimens numbered over 60,000, many of them new to science. While climbing Mount Chimborazo, Ecuador, he set a world altitude record that lasted for 36 years
	30 Henry Walter Bates 1825-1892. British. Illustrated: Bates trapping a specimen in the Brazilian rainforest One of the great explorer naturalists, Bates went out to Brazil in 1848 intending a short visit, but he was so enthraled by the tropical rainforest that he stayed over seven years. There he collected rare insects and explored the Amazon's great tributaries. Undaunted by the physical dangers, he would wander by himself through the forest draped with collecting boxes and scientific equipment. When he came home to England, he had collected 14,712 species of insect, 8,000 of them previously unknown.
	31 Baroon Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiold 1832-1901. Finnish, but lived in Sweden Illustrated: Nordenskiold on the ice. In 1878 Nordenskiold left in the team and sailing ship Vega to navigate the North East passage around the north of Asia. Exploring along the Siberian coast, Vega was trapped in the ice in September. The winter temperature outside the icebound ship sometimes dropped to -5O°. A local tribe. the Chukchi. came to trade fat and blubber for tobacco and pipes. One july evening as the crew were dining they suddenly felt the ship move. The ice was breaking. and Vega sailed on to the Bering Strait. her mission a success.
	32 Fridtjof Nansen 1860-1930. Norwegian. Illustrated: Nansen sailing an improvised kayak raft. A brilliant Arctic explorer, Nansen left Norway in 1888 with three Norwegian companions and two Lapps to cross Greenland on skis. Despite appalling cold the expedition was a complete success. In 1893 he deliberately allowed his ship Pram to be caught in the polar pack ice, believing - correctly - that he would be carried north. At 84° 4' North he left Pram with one companion and made a bold dash for the Pole, which almost succeeded. Extraordinarily generous. Nansen cancelled his own exploration plans and lent Pram to Amundsen for his South Pole expedition.
	33 Robert Edwin Peary 1856-1920. American. Illustrated : Peary manhandling a sledge. Conqueror of the North Pole, Peary devoted 23 rears to attaining his goal. He went to Greenland to learn Arctic sledging techniques from the Eskimos. and It was with Eskimo help that he reached the Pole in 1909. His other companion was his Negro servant, Matthew Henson. In his diary Peary wrote: "The Pole at last. The prize of three centuries . . . mine at last." Peary was so determined to succeed that on the last lap of the journey he asked his Eskimos not to waste effort by talking while they travelled.
	34 Roald Amundsen 1872-1928. Norwegian. Illustrated: Amundsen's party at the South Pole. First to reach the South Pole and first to sail the North West Passage, Amundsen was one of the most professional explorers. In 1903-6 .he sailed the 100 ton auxiliary cutter Gjoa through the North West Passage, in places with only an inch of water below her keel. Then in 1911 using dogsleds he reached the South Pole on December 14, more than a month ahead of Scott (see card 35). Turning his attention to trans-polar flights Amundsen lost his life while on a rescue mission to help a crashed airship.
	35 Robert Falcon Scott 1868-1912. British Illustrated: Sledges and ponies on the ice. In his bid to reach the South Pole in 1911-12, Scott's expedition tried motorised sledges, Siberian dogs, and even Manchurian ponies as transport. But it was by man-hauling their equipment that Scott and four companions reached the Pole on January 17 1912 after great difficulties, only to find that Amundsen had got there first. On the return journey Captain Oates heroically left the party because he was slowing it down, but Scott and his companions, totally exhausted, perished in a blizzard only 11 miles from a store depot.
	36 Ernest Henry Shackleton 1874-1922. British. Illustrated: Endurance sunk by ice. Shackleton had the rare ability of getting the very best performance out of himself and his men. In 1908-9 he and three companions manhauled their sledges within 95 miles of the South Pole in a brilliant forced march. But his greatest journey came on his next expedition after his ship Endurance was crushed and sunk by ice. After drifting on ice floes for five months, Shackleton led his men to Elephant Island and from there made an 800-mile journey in an open boat to fetch help.
	37 Sir John William Alcock 1892-1919. Sir Arthur Whitten Brown 1886-1948.British. Illustrated: The Vickers Vimy after landing in Ireland. First to fly non-stop across the Atlantic, Alcock and Brown used a Vickers Vimy biplane powered by Rolls-Royce engines. Alcock, a former aerobatics instructor, was pilot, while Brown, using an ordinary Atlantic map, navigated. Averaging only 120 mph they were in fog nearly all the way. When ice began to form on thee exterior, Brown climbed up to chip it off. 16 hours 27 minutes after leaving St. John's Newfoundland they landed on June 15, 1919 In what Alcock thought was a 'nice field' - a bog in Clifton, County Galway, Ireland.
	38 Charles Lindbergh 1902-. American. Illustrated: Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field. 'Lucky Lindy' became a hero overnight when on May 20-21 1927 he flew from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in America, to Le Bourget airfield near Pans, the first solo flight non-stop across the Atlantic. Fascinated by flying, Lindbergh had left university to go to pilot's school and then took part in flying circuses across America. The Spirit of St. Louis, his plane for the Atlantic flight, was a specially built Ryan monoplane made In San Diego, California.
	39 Amy Johnson 1903-1941. British. Illustrated: Jason about to take off. Amy Johnson, the first woman to obtain the Air Ministry's Ground Engineer's license .had only completed flights from London to Hull when on May 5 1930 she set out to fly solo to Australia in a Gipsy Moth Jason. She reached Karachi In the record time of six days and Darwin In Northern Australia on May 24. Returning home in triumph she received a prize of �10,000 from the Daily Mail. Later she completed record flights across Siberia (1931) and to Cape Town (1933). Intrepid and cool-headed, she was one of the great long distance fliers.
	40 Thor Heyerdahl 1914-. Norwegian. Illustrated: Kon-Tiki. In 1947 Heyerdahl and five companions built the balsawood raft Kon-Tiki to an ancient South American design and sailed 4,300 miles from Peru to the Pacific Island of Argatau. Heyerdahl showed that early American civilisation could have spread. to Polynesia In the same way. In 1970 he crossed the Atlantic in another ancient type of vessel, a papyrus boat made of reeds to an old Egyptian pattern The first version, Ra I, broke up and sank after 2,000 miles, but Ra II with an International crew reached the West Indies safely.
	41 Alain Bombard 1924-. French. Illustrated: L 'Heretique crossing the Atlantic Bombard, a French doctor, believed that shipwrecked men could survive on .a diet. of raw fish, plankton (small marine creatures) and sea water. After laboratory testing his theories, he set out in 1952 to cross the Atlantic in a rubber dinghy L'Heretique. His Crossing took 65 days, during which time he lived on fish caught With a spear, plankton scooped up in trailing sieve and sea water He arrived in Barbados, sick with loss of weight and anaemia, but he proved that the survivor of a shipwreck. . . must never lose hope'.
	42 Sir Edmund Perdval Hillary 1919-.New Zealander .Norgay Tenzing 1914-. Sherpa. Illustrated : Tenzig on the summit of Everest. The first men to climb Mount Everest Hillary. a New Zealander, and Tenzing, a Sherpa (a Tibetan hill people), were the final assault of the 1953 British Everest expedition. Using oxygen, they reached the South summit at 11.30 am May 29. There Hillary took Tenzing's photograph. and left a small religious offering, some sweets and a packet of biscuits. In 1957-8 Hillary led one section of the Commonwealth Trans Antarctic Expedition. and became the first man after Scott (see card 35) to reach the South Pole overland.
	43 Joshua Slocum 1844-c. 1910. American. Illustrated: Slocum aboard Spray. Slocum had an adventurous life, including a shipwreck off the Brazilian coast and a voyage back to New York. in a sailing canoe made from the wreckage. From the old hulk. of a sloop he then rebuilt Spray, the 37 ft. boat in which he set out in 1895 to sail alone round the world. In three years he covered 46,000 miles, paying his way by lectures and allowing sightseers on his boat. In 1909 he sailed on his last solo voyage and was never seen again.
	44 Sir Francis Chichester 1901-1972. British. Illustrated : Gipsy Moth IV off Cape Horn on her voyage round the world. Sir Francis Chichester's first enthusiasm was for long-distance flying in small planes. and he was awarded a special trophy for inventing a new system of pinpoint navigation. Taking up yachting after the war. he won the first Trans Atlantic solo race in Gipsy Moth III (named after his early planes) and in 1966-67 sailed solo round the world, a distance of 208,000 miles in 226 days sailing time. With Gipsy Moth V he set records for speed solo sailing achieving 300 miles in a day.
	45 Wilfred Patrick Thesiger 1910-. British. Illustrated : The Thesiger crossing the 'Empty Quarter' of Arabia. "I tasted freedom and a life from which there could be no recall" this is how Thesiger described why as a young man he took up a life of travel,. First in Ethiopia and later in the Sudan he explored little known pockets of tribal Territories. Between 1945 and 1949 be made two remarkable crossings of the Empty Quarter .' the desert barrens of Arabia. an area of burning sands which even the Bedouin were reluctant to enter. Later. Thesiger lived and worked among the marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq.
	46 Walter William Herbert 1934-. British. On Illustrated: Wally Herbert crossing the Arctic ice cap. On May 29th four men scrambled ashore on a rocky island at the edge of the polar ice. They had just completed 'the longest - loneliest journey on earth' - the first cross sing of the Arctic ice cap from Barrow Point to Small Blackboard Island Svalbard. Led by Wally Herbert the party had drifted and travelled 3,800 miles on ice and spent winter there. Inquisitive polar bears and sudden ice cracks provided several dangerous moments and the expedition's success confirmed Wally Herbert as one of the most experienced and hardy polar travellers
	47 Auguste Piccard 1884-1962. Swiss Illustrated : Trieste. Originally interested in lighter-than-air flight, Piccard turned his attention after World War II to exploring the ocean depths. Using the same principles as for an airship, he designed the bathyscaphe, an envelope filled with heptane (a form of aviation petrol) from which hung a steel watertight cabin. In 1953 Piccard and his son Jacques took their bathyscaphe Trieste down to 10,392 ft. in the Tyrrhenian Pit off Capri in the Mediterranean, at that time the greatest depth reached by living man.
	48 Jacques Cousteau 1910-. French. Illustrated: Diving saucer and scuba divers. Sometimes described as the 'Father of the aqualung', Cousteau developed and perfected the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (Scuba). This equipment and other devices like the watertight camera case and the 'diving saucer' made possible Cousteau's underwater research programme, which included submarine geology, archaeology, and aquatic studies. Many of his expeditions were filmed from the ship Calypso. More recently Cousteau directed experiments with underwater houses in which divers lived for periods of up to a month.
	49 Yurl Gagarin 1934-1968. Russian. Illustrated: Gagarin in Vostok I. At 07:58 BST on April 12, 1961, the Soviet news agency Tass announced that a man had been put into space for the first time. He was Yuri Gagarin, a pilot and son of a collective farmer. His spaceship Vostok I weighed c. 4.75 tons and was launched by rocket into an elliptical orbit with a greatest height of 187 miles and least of 109 miles. At 08:55 Gagarin landed safely and, without waiting for the army helicopter, walked to the reception team. Until his death in an aircrash, he then helped to train Soviet cosmonauts.
	50 Neil Alden Armstrong 1936-.American. Illustrated: Armstrong on the Moon. With the words "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind", Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. Lunar module Eagle of mission Apollo II touched down on the moon at 2.56 GMT on July 21 1969. Armstrong and his companion Edwin Aldrin collected about 50 lb of lunar rock and soil, planted an American flag with a rod to keep it outstretched, and set up scientific experiments. Then, rejoining Michael Collins in the orbiting command module Columbia, they headed for a successful splashdown in the Pacific.
Writers Timothy Severin John Beswick

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