Expedition History

In this grand and astonishing account, Alec Wilkinson brings us the story of S. A. Andrée, the visionary Swedish aeronaut who, in 1897, during the great age of Arctic endeavor, left to discover the North Pole by flying to it in a hydrogen balloon. Called by a British military officer “the most original and remarkable attempt ever made in Arctic exploration,” Andrée’s expedition was followed by nearly the entire world, and it made him an international legend.

El relato del conocimiento del universo inabarcable, desde la mirada al cielo con el ojo desnudo hasta las sondas enviadas a años luz de la Tierra: una historia que tiene más de 3.600 años de antigüedad.La tarea de resumir más de tres milenios de investigaciones sobre el cielo parece imposible, más difícil aún parece presentarla de modo que pueda ser conocido por cualquier tipo de oyente, independientemente del conocimiento del mismo.

What makes a good explorer? Adaptability, ambition, stamina, self-confidence, curiosity, optimism, authority—and fundraising ability. Though few of us will ever have to face a charging elephant, or survive solely on penguin stew, when it comes to project management, crisis aversion, or any number of everyday problems, there is much we can learn from the larger-than-life tales of the world's most famous adventurers.

In the early years of the 18th century, a band of French scientists set off on a daring, decade-long expedition to South America in a race to measure the precise shape of the earth. Like Lewis and Clark's exploration of the American West, their incredible mission revealed the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery. Scaling 16,000-foot mountains in the Peruvian Andes, and braving jaguars, pumas, insects, and vampire bats in the jungle, the scientists barely completed their mission.

Everybody imagines the world's most interesting man to be a fictional, gray-haired lothario who drinks Mexican beer and boasts of his legendary exploits. But what if a man like this really lived? It turns out he did, and there were two of them--both Victorian explorers.

Acclaimed South African writer Darrel Bristow-Bovey has a deeply personal relationship with the story of Endurance and in this lyrical, loving journey into past and present, into humanity and the natural world, above and below the Antarctic ice, he revisits the famous story from a contemporary perspective, wondering why it seems to mean more today than ever before, and exploring our changing relationship with ourselves and the ice, and with our shared story of survival.

Reaching the top of the world in 1953 was one of the most significant achievements in the history of human endurance.

A thrilling adventure story chronicling the perilous journey of the scientists who set out to prove the theory of relativity--the results of which catapulted Albert Einstein to fame and forever changed our understanding of the universe. In 1911, a relatively unknown physicist named Albert...

In 1819, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an 80-ton bull sperm whale. Its 20-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During 90 days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.

Born the runt of his litter and gambled away to a rusty old riverman, the Newfoundland pup Seaman doesn't imagine his life will be marked by any kind of glory - beyond chasing down rats. But when he meets Captain Meriwether Lewis, Seaman finds himself on a path that will make history. Lewis is just setting off on his landmark search for the Northwest Passage, and he takes Seaman along. Sharing the curiosity and strength of spirit of his new master, Seaman proves himself a valuable companion at every turn.

If you want to discover the captivating history of the Age of Discovery, then pay attention.... The Age of Discovery began in the early part of the 15th century and carried on through most of the 17th century. It is sometimes also referred to as the Age of Exploration. This was a time when the people of Europe began to travel, discover, and explore more of the world than ever before, mapping and naming the places they found. They bravely went out on the seas to learn about the world, often never sure if they would find anything at all, let alone ever return home.

With Thomas Jefferson's purchase of the vast Louisiana Territory, the U.S. President was one step closer to realizing his dream of a nation spanning the oceans. The next step was exploration of this new geographical possession. Thus began the unbelievable four-year odyssey chronicled in Lewis and Clark: The Great American Expedition.

The riveting true story of a legendary Spanish galleon that sunk off the coast of Colombia with over $1 billion in gold and silver—and one man’s obsessive quest to find it—from the New York Times bestselling author of Madhouse at the End of the Earth Roger Dooley wasn’t looking for the...

This work covers Darwin's part in the second survey expedition of the ship HMS Beagle. It is both a travel memoir and a scientific field journal of anthropological, biological, and geological interest. Darwin conveys his fascination with the natural world in an engaging writing style.

Jens Munk er en skildring af den danske søkaptajn Jens Munk, der levede 1570-1628. Det er beretningen om hans eventyrlige og omskiftelige liv, som bl.a. førte ham til Sydamerika og Nordkap, og om hans kampe i Christian IV's tjeneste mod kapere og svenskere. Bogen kulminerer med skildringen af Jens Munks forsøg på at finde en gennemsejling til Kina nord om Amerika i 1619-20. Under denne ekspedition måtte han overvintre i bunden af Hudson Bay, hvor situationen udviklede sig til en katastrofe. Af de 65 søfolk overlevede, foruden Jens Munk, kun to mænd.

Captain Robert Scott’s final journey to the South Pole has been called one of history’s greatest tales of adventure. And his journals are among the most dramatic and moving documents in the English language. Sensitively read by David Horovitch, this new audio adaptation starts in 1910 as Scott's ship, the Terra Nova, sets sail from New Zealand. Then in vivid, conversational style details the dangerous journey through the ice to Antarctica, the winter hibernation in 24-hour darkness, and the final journey to and from the Pole.

Originariamente publicadas como folletín, en 1870, en el diario La Tribuna, las cartas que componen este libro son el particular relato de la expedición de Lucio V. Mansilla Tierra Adentro y de su encuentro con los indios ranqueles. Con una minuciosidad por momentos cercana a la obsesión, en ellas el autor toma nota de los detalles de la geografía pampeana y describe lúcidamente los hábitos, costumbres y comportamientos del mundo indígena, ese gran Otro de la literatura argentina.

It could be said that European kings and nobles in the Middle Ages were Crusade mad. The enormous amount of fighting men who periodically sailed off to the Near East to do battle with Muslims are evidence of the widespread popularity of overseas adventurism at the time. The notion of a Crusade, in which large armies assembled from various regions of Europe for the purpose of doing battle with Turkish and Arab Muslims, became so fixed that it was expanded to include Crusades against heretical European Christian sects.

The families behind America’s astronaut heroes are just like yours...sort of. This is the hilarious true story of one of those families. While many children grow up wanting to become an astronaut, Patrick Mullane grew up the child of one. In his memoir, The Father, Son, and Holy Shuttle: Growing Up an Astronaut’s Kid in the Glorious 80s, Mullane shares his hilarious coming-of-age story. It’s a story about his quirky and death-defying father, a mother with a secret, and a cast of characters from his extended family who showed their love for him in often bizarre ways.

As Brits we pride ourselves as stoic defenders, boasting a record of resistance dating back to 1066. Yet, even a cursory examination of the natural world reveals that while interlopers of the human variety may have been kept at bay, our islands have been invaded, conquered and settled by an endless succession of animals, plants, fungi and other alien lifeforms that apparently belong elsewhere. Indeed it’s often hard to work out what actually is native, and what is foreign.