George Catlin was an American painter, author and traveler who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West. Following a brief career as a lawyer, Catlin produced two major collections of paintings of American Indians and pu...

Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville was a French explorer, naval officer and rear admiral, who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica. In honour of his many valuable chartings, the D'Urville Sea...

Sacagawea, also Sakakawea or Sacajawea, was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition achieve each of its chartered mission objectives exploring the Louisiana Purchase. With the expedition, between 1804 and 1806, she...

General Gregor MacGregor was a Scottish soldier, adventurer and confidence trickster who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to ru...

Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin KCH FRGS RN was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. Franklin also served as governor of Tasmania for several years. In his last expedition, he disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate a...

Johann Ludwig (also known as John Lewis, Jean Louis) Burckhardt was a Swiss traveller and orientalist. He wrote his letters in French and signed Louis. He is best known for rediscovering the ruins of the city of Petra in Jordan. During h...

Hugh Glass was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, fur trader, hunter, and explorer. Born in Pennsylvania to Scotch-Irish parents, Glass became an explorer of the watershed of the Upper Missouri River, in present-day Montana, North Dakot...

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles was a British statesman, Lieutenant-Governor of British Java (1811 – 1815), Governor-General of Bencoolen (1817 – 1822), best known for his founding of the city of Singapore in 1819 (now the city-state of the Rep...

Meriwether Lewis was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark, whose mission was to explore the...

William Clark was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor. A native of Virginia, he would also grow up in pre-statehood Kentucky before later settling in what later became the state of Missouri. Along with Meri...

Alexander von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography was foundational...

Sir David Ochterlony, 1st Baronet GCB, was a British general. In 1777, he went as a cadet to India, where he served under Lord Lake in the battles of Koil, Aligarh and Delhi, and was appointed resident at Delhi in 1803. As the official Brit...

An English navigator and explorer, Vancouver sailed on Capt. James Cook's 2nd and 3rd voyages. In 1791, he set out for the NW coast of America. He rounded the Cape of Good Hope, explored the coasts of Australia and New Zealand, and visited...

Samuel Hearne, explorer, fur trader. He joined the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in 1766 and was chosen to search for a western passage, by river or sea, across the Barren Lands. His first 2 attempts ended ingloriously, as he was bullied, robb...

Admiral Arthur Phillip RN was a British admiral and colonial administrator. Phillip was appointed Governor of New South Wales, the first European colony on the Australian continent, and was the founder of the settlement which is now the cit...