| Exploration |
When |
Who (explorer) |
| Northwest African coast (West Africa) |
about 500 BC |
Hanno the Navigator |
| The Mediterranean Sea |
5th century BC |
Himilco the Navigator |
| Around western Europe to Thule Island |
about 330 BC |
Pytheas of Marseilles |
| Greenland, Iceland, and Faroes |
900 |
Gunnbjörn Ulfsson |
| Americas (North America) |
999 |
Leif Ericson |
| Brazil (South America) - controversial |
c. 14th century CE |
Abu Bakr II |
| Sahelian kingdoms |
1351-1354 |
Ibn Battuta |
| Great permanent wind wheel of Volta do Mar, the North Atlantic Gyre. Recognition of the Sargasso Sea, Madeira, Azores and West African coast. Cape Verde |
1427-1460 |
Several navigators: Portuguese or serving Portugal, most under the sponsorship of Henry the Navigator |
| Congo River, Angola and Namibia |
1482-1485 |
Diogo Cão |
| South Africa. Connected the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. South Atlantic Volta do Mar winds |
1482-1485 |
Bartolomeu Dias |
| Caribbean, Venezuela (South America) and Central America. Use and development of the North Atlantic routes |
1493-1502 |
Christopher Columbus |
| Atlantic Ocean (outer routes) and Indian Ocean, Sea route to India (Europe to Asia) |
1497-1499 |
Vasco da Gama |
| Brazil, South Atlantic Volta do Mar, Indian Ocean, Madagascar, gate of the Red Sea (Bab-el-Mandeb Strait); India. Voyage that united Europe, Americas, Africa and Asia |
1500-1501 |
Pedro Álvares Cabral and Diogo Dias, among others |
| Timor, Moluccas (Australasia - Pacific Ocean) |
1512-1513 |
António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão |
| Circumnavigation of the Globe. Connection from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean (Americas to Asia) |
1519-1522 |
Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano |
| Mexico |
1519-1521 |
Hernán Cortés |
| Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and east of the Inca Empire |
1525-1527 |
Aleixo Garcia |
| Traveled across the Southwest of North America (Completely) |
1528 |
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca |
| Peru, Inca Empire and Ecuador |
1531-1534 |
Francisco Pizarro |
| Ecuador and Brazil. Length of the Amazon River |
1531-1534 |
Francisco de Orellana |
| Canada, Saint Lawrence River |
1534-1542 |
Jacques Cartier |
| Colombia, Conquest of the Muisca |
1536-1537 |
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada |
| Pacific Ocean's Volta do Mar (Asia to the Americas) |
1564-1565 |
Andrés de Urdaneta |
| Galápagos Islands, Rapa Nui |
c. 1480 |
Tupaq Inka Yupanki. 1594-1597
Rediscovered by the Spanish |
| North, Canada (Hudson Bay) |
1574-1631 |
Henry Hudson |
| North |
1594-1597 |
Willem Barents |
| Siberia and Pacific coast. |
1649-1641 |
Ivan Yuryevich Moskvitin |
| Oceania |
1642-1643 |
Abel Tasman |
| Brazil (Circumnavigation), Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru. Connected the River Plate Basin to the Andes and to the mouth of the Amazon River |
1648-1651 |
António Raposo Tavares |
| Oceania |
1768-1779 |
James Cook |
| North Pacific, western Alaska, Far East Eurasian Coast |
1771 |
Moric Benovsky |
| Hawaiian Islands |
By c. 800 |
Hawaiʻiloa (mythical) |
| Central America and Latin America |
1799-1803 |
Alexander von Humboldt |
| Northwest Plateau of North America |
1804-1806 |
Lewis and Clark Expedition |
| The North Magnetic Pole |
1831-06-01 |
James Clark Ross |
| Australia |
c. 1640 |
Makassar People before. Explored by Abel Tasman |
| Interior of Africa |
1851-1873 |
David Livingstone |
| The Burke and Wills expedition (Central Australia) |
1860-1861 |
Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills |
| Exploration of the Zambeze river region, Central Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Zaire |
1877 |
Serpa Pinto |
| The Northern Sea Route |
1878 |
Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld |
| The South Magnetic Pole |
January 16, 1909 |
Douglas Mawson, Edgeworth David, and Alistair Mackay |
| The North Pole |
April 6, 1909 |
Robert Peary |
| The South Pole |
December 14, 1911 |
Roald Amundsen |
| The South Pole |
January 17, 1912 |
Robert Falcon Scott |
| Mount Everest Summit |
May 29, 1953 |
Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay |
| The Moon |
July 20, 1969 |
Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11) |
| Mars |
1960 to present |
NASA and other space agency exploration robots |