Henry Hudson was an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century. Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a prospective Northeast Passage to Cathay (today's China) via a route above the Arctic Circle....

William Brewster was an English official and Mayflower passenger in 1620. In Plymouth Colony, by virtue of his education and existing stature with those immigrating from the Netherlands, Brewster, a Brownist (or Puritan Separatist), became...

Jacob van Heemskerk was a Dutch explorer and later admiral commanding the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Gibraltar. Van Heemskerk's early fame arose from an attempts to discover an Arctic passage from Europe to China. Two vessels sailed from...

Maurice of Orange was stadtholder of all the provinces of the Dutch Republic except for Friesland from 1585 at earliest until his death in 1625. Before he became Prince of Orange upon the death of his eldest half-brother Philip William in 1...

Willem Cornelisz Schouten was a Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean. In 1615 Willem Cornelisz Schouten and his younger brother Jan Schouten sailed from Texel...

Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt, Dutch painter, was born at Delft, the son of a goldsmith, who apprenticed him to the copperplate engraver Hieronymus Wierix. He subsequently became a pupil of Willem Willemz and Augusteyn of Delft, until Anthoni...

The Eighty Years' War or Dutch War of Independence (1568–1648) was a revolt of the Seventeen Provinces of what are today the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, as well as the French region of Hauts-de-France against the political and rel...

Jan Janszoon van Haarlem, commonly known as Reis Mourad the Younger, was a Dutch pirate in Morocco who converted to Islam after being captured by a Moorish state in 1618. He began serving as a pirate, one of the most famous of the 17th-cent...

Frederick de Houtman was a Dutch explorer, navigator, and colonial governor who sailed along the coastal regions of western Australia on the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies from 1595 until 1597, during which time he made observati...

Willem Janszoon Blaeu: Author, printer, and publisher of geographic maps and globes, which he signed until 1621 with the Latinized name of Guljelmus Caesius. Pupil and friend of Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), from whom he acquired the astronomica...

Edward Cecil, 1st Viscount Wimbledon, was an English military and naval commander and a politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1601 and 1624. Cecil served with the English forces in the Netherlands between 1596...

Jan Adriaanszoon Leeghwater (De Rijp, The Netherlands) was a Dutch mill builder and hydraulic engineer. He was involved in the reclamation of the Beemster polder, the first polder in the world created from a lake by draining the water using...

In 1577 begint op de leeftijd van 63 jaar de Scheveninger Adriaen Coenensz aan zijn Visboek. In drie jaar tijd verzamelt hij daarin allerlei wetenswaardigheden over de zee, de kusten en kustwateren, de visgronden en de zeedieren. Hij schrij...

Piet Pieterszoon Hein (Heyn) was a Dutch naval officer and folk hero during the Eighty Years' War between the Netherlands and Spain. Hein was born in Delfshaven (now part of Rotterdam), the son of a captain, and he became a sailor while he...

Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality. He is well known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and hist...