Every Day Is Special: Cook

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April 6 - Reaching the North Pole! (But...Really?)

Posted on April 6, 2020

Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, polar exploration was of great interest to people. Phrases such as "the ends of the Earth" and "the most remote corners of the world" make no sense when talking about a roughly spherical planet - and yet still make a kind of sense because our human scale on the planet makes it feel flat...and people were fascinated by the concept of visiting places never before seen.

Finding the geographic North Pole would
be easier if it was located exactly where
the magnetic North Pole is located.
But it's not.

Of course, using the sky and navigational instruments to determine location - where EXACTLY is the geographical North and South Pole? - made conquering these particular goals even more difficult than ice and weather made them.

Robert Peary was an American explorer and US Navy officer who led several expeditions to the North Pole. He set a new "Farthest North" record at the turn of the century (1902) but continued on until this date in 1909, when one of his scouts, Matthew Hensen, may have reached the North Pole slightly before the rest of the six-man group got there.

Peary communicated the news of this "first" - termed by many as a "discovery" - from Labrador. He made headlines!

But at nearly the same time, a former expedition-mate, American explorer Dr. Frederick Cook, arrived back in civilization after more than a year of being missing and presumed dead on his own polar expedition. Cook also claimed to have reached the North Pole - but a whole year ahead of Perry, in April of 1908!

Above, Robert Peary
Below, Dr. Frederick Cook

It is not certain whether either Peary or Cook actually reached the exact spot we call the geographical North Pole. Both men claimed to have left notes (and in Peary's case, a strip from the American flag he took to the Pole) in tins buried in the ice, and neither note has ever been found.

Of course, since the North Pole is located in an open ocean often covered by constantly-shifting sea ice, we would not be likely to find anything where it was once buried!

Both men showed daring in making polar expeditions, at any rate, no matter whether or not their claims were correct. Peary ended up getting the credit for the "discovery" - but some scholars question this. To read more about the controversy, check out this article in the Smithsonian.

By the way, these days really rich people apparently sometimes travel to the North Pole - I guess for bragging rights? Or to see with their own two eyes something they have always heard about?

The pictures below show a way to stay at the North Pole - for more than $100,000 a night!

Also on this date:

Anniversary of the death of Richard the Lionheart

TeflonDay

Painter John William Waterhouse's birthday

Chakri Day in Thailand

Anniversary of the first modern Olympic Games

Be sure to check out the story of Robert Garrett, pictured here. It's pretty strange and cool!

National Tartan Da y

Anniversary of radio's debut

Celebrating Raphael

Anniversary of Post-It Notes first sold

Slow Art Day

Hostess Twinkie Day

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January 18 – Cook Spots Hawaii!

Posted on January 18, 2019

I've said this before, and I'll say it again, when we say something like "so-and-so discovered such-and-such place," we USUALLY mean something like this: "so-and-so is the first European known to have seen or landed on such-and-such place."

I have to remind myself of this misuse of the word discover whenever I read about an intrepid explorer discovering a place WHERE HUMANS ALREADY LIVE! I mean, for sure the ancestors of those humans discovered the place before the explorer did - and maybe even they weren't the first humans to see / walk in that place!

Another less important point: We always name the big-name guy, the fellow who gets all the name recognition, all the credit and/or blame for the "discovery" -

But it was probably someone in the big-name guy's crew, someone whose name is lost to us know, who was the first European to clap eyes one wherever-it-is.

Probably some poorly paid sailor high in the rigging or up in the crow's nest, someone who called "Land ho!" or "Mire!" or "La terra, la terra!" or whatever.

Anyhow, on this date in 1778, British explorer James Cook "discovered" Hawaii - or, rather, someone on James Cook's crew became the first European to see any of the Hawaiian Islands.

Cook and his crew first anchored in Waimea Bay, on the island of Kauai, but I'm not sure how many islands they saw or which island they spotted first. I do know, however, that Cook named the islands the Sandwich Islands, after the fourth Earl of Sandwich, who was pretty much his boss.

Cook and his crew met with inhabitants to trade, getting water and fresh food for the next leg of their trip.

Months later, on his return trip, Cook and his crew explored a bit of Maui and the island of Hawaii (aka "the Big Island") - but relations with the inhabitants got bad, and Cook and several other British marines ended up dying when they tried to kidnap and hold for ransom the King of Hawaii. Some other crew members died of a variety of other causes (mostly illness), but many of them were able to complete the journey back to Britain and spread the word on the existence and location of the Hawaiian Islands.

Here are some of the most beautiful things to be seen on Hawaii's eight main islands (there are hundreds of teeny islands as well):

Maui:

Molokai:

Kauai:

Oahu:

Lanai:

The Big Island:

Niihau - the forbidden island:

Kahoolawe - the privately owned island:

Also on this date:

Birthday of sound engineer Ray Dolby

Inventor Joseph Dixon's birthday

Lima Foundation Day

Thesaurus Day

Winnie the Pooh Day

(aka A. A. Milne's birthday!)

Artist OTGO's birthday

Anniversary of legal precedent for cremation in the U.K.

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February holidays
February birthdays
Historical anniversaries in February

June 11 – Discovery of a Great Reef

Posted on June 11, 2016

The Great Barrier Reef from space

The Great Barrier Reef is a gorgeous place, by some definitions the largest living thing on Earth, visible, even, from space! Thousands and thousands of different sorts of species – from dolphins and dugongs to fish and sea snakes, from sea turtles and sea grasses to mollusks and crocodiles, from sponges and anemones to sea stars and seaweeds, and of course thousands of corals – live on the reef.

It does not seem like it would be difficult to discover such a huge thing – and it seems like the discovery would be a fun and beautiful thing.

But...

The Great Barrier Reef is located off the coast of Australia, a place very far from and indeed not yet discovered by European explorers. And the discovery wasn't so much of a “Oh, look! How beautiful is that!” as it was a “Oh, no! What did we run into???”

On this date in 1770, English explorer and naval officer Captain James Cook “discovered” the Great Barrier Reef the hard way – by running his ship The Endeavor aground on it!

Once your ship is aground, it's not so easy to fix the problem.

After being stuck for an entire day, Cook and his crew finally freed their ship by throwing overboard 50 TONS of stuff. Then they still had to repair the damage. And only then could they get back to following their super secret orders: to search for a major southern continent and claim it for England.

A couple of months later, Cook would discover and explore Australia and New Zealand. Even though the former is considered a southern continent, it wasn't the huge landmass that so many people thought MUST exist to balance out the Earth. (Have you ever noticed that there is way more land in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern?)