Leif Erikson
Ohio State UniversityLeif Erikson.
Almost 500 years before Columbus made his voyage to the New World, another European explorer was leaving the coast of Greenland. His name was Leif Erikson, and he was the son of the famous explorer Erik the Red.
Erik the Red was an 11th-century Norse sailor who was banished from his home in Iceland after committing a murder.
Deciding that he’d simply go find a new place to live, Erik sailed west, where he discovered the frozen island he somewhat misleadingly named “Greenland.”
And like his father, Leif Eriksson decided to try his hand at exploration. Around 1000 C.E., Eriksson left Norway with a small crew headed west on a mission to spread Christianity to the colony his father had founded.
Wikimedia CommonsLeif Erikson on one of his journeys.
But according to legend, his ship was blown off course. The crew traveled past Greenland and ended up coming ashore on a previously unknown land.
Noting the climate that allowed for wild grapes to grow, Eriksson named the country “Vinland.”
The exact location of Vinland is disputed, but archaeological evidence suggests that Eriksson had actually discovered what is today Canada.
For a number of reasons, the Norse never colonized Vinland on a large scale. But the famous explorer Eriksson remains the first European to conclusively reach the New World. To this day, many believe he should, and not Christopher Columbus, should be known as the man who discovered America.
Percy Fawcett
Wikimedia CommonsPercy Fawcett.
Percy Fawcett is an English explorer that was the fixture of what has been called “the greatest exploration mystery of the 20th century.”
Born in 1867 in England, Fawcett would go on to join the Royal Military Academy as a cadet and rose up the ranks to become a captain by 1897.
After serving overseas in Malta and Hong Kong, among other places, Fawcett joined the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in 1901 to study mapmaking and surveying.
He seemingly began to follow his father’s footsteps, as he was also an RGS Fellow when he was young. Fawcett’s uncle also had a curious and adventurous spirit, as he was a mountain climber and the author of popular adventure novels.
Fawcett began to explore South America in 1906 after the RGS commissioned him to go on an expedition and map the jungle area along the border of Brazil and Bolivia.
After several more expeditions to the unknown Amazon, Fawcett hypothesized that a “lost city” which he dubbed “Z” existed somewhere in the jungle based on his previous research.
Wikimedia CommonsA map of Percy Fawcett’s travels.
In 1920, Fawcett embarked on his first independent journey to find an “El Dorado”, the lost city of sorts he had called the “Z.” The endeavor was cut short after Fawcett’s pack animal sustained an injury, forcing him to shoot the animal, and after he fell ill from contracting a fever.
Five years later, Fawcett made a second attempt at finding his lost city, this time joined by his son Jack, and his son’s friend Raleigh Rimell.
Fawcett wrote to his wife from a camp he created during his earlier expedition about a month into his journey, and it would be the last time anyone heard from Fawcett or his companions.
The announcement of his second expedition made Fawcett a bonafide celebrity. The world has become engrossed in his expedition, with some calling it “the most hazardous and certainly the most spectacular adventure of the kind ever undertaken.”
Despite Fawcett’s disappearance, the adventurous spirit of this famous explorer caught the world’s attention and is credited as one of the inspirations behind Harrison Ford’s iconic Indiana Jones character.
