Notable & Famous Explorers Posters “P...-”
for social studies teachers and home schoolers, theme decor in office.

Mungo Park
b. 9-11-1771; Selkirkshire, Scotland
d. 1806; Bussa, Nigeria, Africa

Mungo Park, Scottish explorer credited as being the first Westerner to encounter the Niger River, was also a surgeon and natural scientist.

• The Journals of Mungo Park at Project Gutenberg

Commander Robert Peary
b. 5-6-1856; Cresson, Pennsylvania
d. 2-20-1920; Washington, DC

Robert Peary, whose claim to have been the first person to reach the North Pole, 4-6-1909 has been rejected, was the first to use native Inuit skills to survive the polar conditions.

Matthew Henson was a member of Peary's expeditions beginning in 1887 and was on the 1909 trip.

FYI - The ‘first confirmed surface’ polar expedition wasn't until 1968.

• igloo poster

• Exploring the North Pole: The Story of Robert Edwin Peary and Matthew Henson

Zebulon Pike
b. 1-5-1779; Lamberton, NJ
d. 4-27-1813; on military duty in the War of 1812

Zebulon Pike, namesake of Pikes Peak, was a soldier and explorer of the southern portion of the Louisiana Purchase, 1805-1806. His journal descriptions were instrumental in the development of the Santa Fe Trail.

FYI ~ Pike's only child, Clarissa, married the son of William Henry Harrison.

Martin Alonso Pinzon
b. c. 1441; Huelva, Andalusia, Spain
d. March, 1493; Palos de la Frontera, Spain

Martin Alonso Pinzon, a Spanish navigator, explorer, and member of a Spanish ship-owning family, sailed with Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to the New World in 1492, as captain of the Pinta. His brother, Francisco Pinzón, was pilot on the Niña.

Francisco Pizarro
b. c. 1475, Trujillo, Crown of Castile, Spain
d. 6-26-1541; Lima, New Castile, (Peru)(assassinated)

Francisco Pizarro was a Spanish conquistador – a conqueror in search of gold and glory in the New World. ...

Hernando de Soto was with Pizarro on the conquest of Peru; Diego de Almagro became a rival of Pizarro, and Hernán Cortés was his distant second cousin.

• South America posters

Marco Polo
b. c. 1254; Venice, Italy
d. 1-8-1324; Venice

Marco Polo and his father Maffeo and uncle Nicolo were Venetian merchants who traveled to Asia. It was Marco Polo's stories that were published as Il Milione (The Travels of Marco Polo) that inspired men like Christopher Columbus.

• China posters

Juan Ponce de Leon, Giclee Print

Juan Ponce de León
b. c. 1460; San Servas, Spain
d. July, 1521; Havana, Cuba

Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León was on the second voyage of Christopher Columbus and became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish Crown.

He is notable in Florida history as the first known European exploration (1513) and calling the land “La Florida” and the legend of the Fountain of Youth.

Gaspar de Portolà de Rovira
b. 1716; Os de Balaguer, Catalonia, Spain
d. October, 1784-6?; Spain

The explorer and soldier Gaspar de Portolà was commander of the land expedition that lead to the founding of San Diego.

John Wesley Powell
b. 3-24-1834; Mount Morris, NY
d. 9-23-1902; Pennsylvania

John Wesley Powell is best remembered for his 1869 three-month river trip down the Green and Colorado rivers, the first passage of European Americans through the Grand Canyon.

Powell was also the second director of the US Geological Survey (1881–1894) and proposed policies for water management in the development of the arid West, such as state boundaries based on watershed areas (to avoid squabbles).

• Seeing Things Whole: The Essential John Wesley Powell, Pioneers of Conservation

Pytheas the Greek
f. 350-285 BC; Massalia (modern day Marseilles, France)

Geographer Pytheas made the earliest recorded voyage to Britain, the Baltic, and the Arctic Circle. He is the first Greek to see the midnight sun, link the tides with the moon, and describe amber.

On the Ocean, his periplus or manuscript that “listed, in order, the ports and coastal landmarks, with approximate intervening distances, that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore”, is lost though referenced by Strabos, Diodorus of Sicily, and Pliny the Elder.

However Pytheas was not the first Greek to explore outside the Pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar). The now lost Massaliote Periplus, from as early as the 6th century BC, was preserved by the 4th century poet Avienus in Ora Maritime (The Maritime Shores). This merchant handbook described the sea routes used by traders from Phoenicia and Tartessus to Iron Age Europe.

Euthymenes, Kolaios of Samos 630bc, polybios, eudoxos of kyzikos, Megalopolis megále pólis (great city), Itinerarium