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.
