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

Thomas Walker
b. 1-25-1715; “Rye Field”, Walkerton, King and Queen County, Virginia
d. 11-9-1794; Castle Hill, Albemarle Co.

In 1750, Dr. Thomas Walker, Agent of the Loyal Company, discovered the only easy passageway through the lower central Appalachian Mountains, already in use by Native Americans. He named features in the area after the Duke of Cumberland.

Walker's journals, maps, and surveys led to the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap, that was opened for pioneers by Daniel Boone and John Finley.

Walker is credited with building the first house in Kentucky and the first American to find and use coal found in Kentucky.

FYI ~ Walker was a guardian for a young Thomas Jefferson.

Alfred Russel Wallace
b. 1-8-1823; Wales
d. 11-7-1913; England

Alfred Russel Wallace, who explored and did extensive field work in the Amazon and Malay Archipelago, is best remembered for proposing a natural selection evolutionary theory before Darwin. Wallace's ideas include biogeography, the study of where organisms live and their population size, and why a certain organism is or is not found in a certain geographical area.

Wallace, one of the first to raise concerns over the environmental impact of human activity and critical of the social and economic systems of 19th century England, was influenced by Thomas Malthus.

Samuel Wallis
b. April, 1728; Cornwall
d. 1-17-1795; London

Samuel Wallis circumnavigated the world 1766-68 with the HMS Dolphin, reaching Tahiti, which he called King George the Third's Island. His charts and records were useful information for Captain James Cook.

James Weddell
xb. 8-24-1787; bap. Ostend, Belgium
d. 9-9-1834; London

In the early spring of 1823 James Weddell, a navigator and seal hunter, sailed to latitude of 74°15' S (532 statute miles south of the Antarctic Circle) into a region of the Southern Ocean that later became known as the Weddell Sea.

The region would not be visited again until 1911, when Wilhelm Filchner discovered the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf.

Charles Wilkes
b. 4-3-1798; NYC, NY
d. 2-8-1877; Washington, DC

Charles Wilkes was the naval officer in charge of the 1838-1842 United States Exploring Expedition (EX EX) to the Pacific. He was one of the first to explore around Antarctic.

In addition to the monumental contributions he made to science, it is noted that Wilkes was raised by his aunt, Elizabeth Ann Seton; it is also speculated that Wilkes was the model for the Captain Ahab character in Herman Melville's ‘Moby Dick’. Wilkes, despite his age, was also a naval officer during the Civil War.

• Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, during the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842: Volume 1

Xenophon of Athens
b. c. 427 BC; Greece
d. c. 355 BC

Xenophon is known as a historian for saving the sayings of Socrates, and recording the life of ancient Greece.

His work Anabasis, a narration of his journey with the army of Greek mercenares known as the Ten Thousand, describes an expedition from the Ionian coast to the interior of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and the Black Sea.

He is also called the original “horse whisperer” based on his “On Horsemanship”.

Xenophon quotes ~
• “A horse is a thing of beauty. . . none will tire of looking at him as long as he displays himself in his splendor.”
• “The sweetest of all sounds is praise.”

• A History of My Times

Xuanzang
b. 602; Henan province, China
d. 664;

Xuanang was a Buddhist monk and scholar who became famous for his seventeen-year overland pilgrimage to India in order to clarify his understanding of Buddhist thought. His travels probably followed the Silk Road.

Xuanzang's work, the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, is a detailed account of his journey through the countries of Central and South Asia.

Journey to the West, a fictionalized account the Xuanzang's journey was written by Wu Cheng'en during the 16th century Ming Dynasty. Also known as Monkey, the novel is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of premodern China.

The Travels of Xuanzang - free map at Silk-Road.com (use the left navigation to route maps).

Yermak (Timofeyevich)
b. c. 1532-42; France
d. 8-6-1585; drown in Wagay River

Yermak was a Cossack who was hired by merchants to explore and secure Siberia for Russian expansion of trade.

• Yermak the Conqueror

Zheng He
b. 1371; Kunyang, Yunnan, China
d. 1433; at sea

Zheng He was an explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who commanded expeditionary voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa from 1405 to 1433. Zheng He preceded Christopher Columbus and Europe's search for the New World by nearly a century.

Free printable map of Zheng He's voyages from National Geographic.