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

Percy Fawcett
b. 8-18-1867; Torquay, Devon, England
d. 1925; Mato Grosso, Brazil

Archeologist, and military officer, Percy Fawcett is most remembered for his ill-fated expedition to find an ancient lost city in the uncharted jungles of Brazil. He called the city “Z” and believed it to be the fabled El Dorado.

John Finley
b. c. 1722; northern Ireland
d. c. 1769

The Indian trader and long hunter John Finley, captured by Shawnee and taken to what is known as the Bluegrass country of Kentucky in 1752, was one of the first Europeans to explore the Appalachian frontier.

After being released and finding his way back to settlement he found people were embroiled in the French and Indian War. It was as wagon drivers for General Braddock's expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1755 that Finley and Daniel Boone first met.

In 1769 Boone, Finley and their hunting companions went through the Cumberland Gap, already identified by Thomas Walker.

source Facts On File

Matthew Flinders
b. 3-16-1774; Donington, England
d. 7-19-1814; London, England

Captain Matthew Flinders, RN, was an accomplished navigator and cartographer whose naval career spanned just over twenty years.

Flinders sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, survived shipwreck only to be imprisoned as a spy, identified and corrected the compass reading effected by the iron components and equipment on board wooden ships, and wrote the seminal work on Australian exploration A Voyage To Terra Australis.

• Terra Australis: Matthew Flinders' great adventures in the circumnavigation of Australia

Sir John Franklin
b. 4-15-1786; Lincolnshire, England
d. 6-11-1847; near King William Island, Canada

Sir John Franklin, British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer, mapped almost two thirds of the northern coastline of North America. He died while attempting to chart and navigate the Canadian Arctic for a Northwest Passage; his entire crew then perished of exposure and starvation when they abandoned the icebound ships in desperation.

Search parties were sent out for the Franklin Expedition: James Clark Ross, Robert McClure.

Franklin was the nephew of Matthew Flinders and the uncle of Emily Tennyson, wife of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

• Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition

Simon Fraser
b. 5-20-1776; Mapletown, NY (raised in Canada)
d. 8-18-1862; St. Andrews West, Canada

Fur trader Simon Fraser charted much of British Columbia, built the first trading posts for the North West Company in that area, and in 1808 explored the river that now bears his name.

His presence and activities as a British subject helped establish the 49th parallel as the southern boundary of Canada.

John C. Fremont
b. 1-21-1813; Savannah, Georgia
d. 7-13-1890; NYC

John C. Fremont, known as “The Pathfinder”, was a military officer, explorer, the first candidate of the Republican Party for the office of US President (and the first Presidential candidate of a major party to run on a platform in opposition to slavery).

Fremont was married to Jessie Benton, daughter of Missouri senator, Thomas Hart Benton. His chief guide was “Kit” Carson.

• Pathfinder: John Charles Fremont and the Course of American Empire

Sir Martin Frobisher
b. c. 1535; Yorkshire, England
d. 11-15-1594; Plymouth, England, of a wound received in action.

Sir Martin Frobisher made his first voyage to Guinea, 1554; a voyage in search of a Northwest Passage, 1576; sailed to the same region in search of gold, of which he brought home 200 tons of iron pyrite, 1577; landed in Greenland, 1578; Vice-Admiral in Drake's expedition to the West Indies, 1585; commanded a ship against the Spanish Armada, and was Knighted in 1588.

FYI ~ The first thanksgiving feast in North America was offered by Frobisher in 1578 on Baffin Island (today Nunavut), as thanks for a safe crossing from England.

• Elizabethan Hero: The Life of Sir Martin Frobisher