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44 unusual facts about James Cook


1780 in poetry

Anna Seward, Elegy on Captain Cook, on James Cook, who died February 13, 1779 in Hawaii

Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón

There are some questions as to whether Spanish explorers did arrive in the Hawaiian Islands two centuries before Captain James Cook's first recorded visit in 1778.

Banks' Florilegium

Banks' Florilegium is a collection of copperplate engravings of plants collected by Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander while they accompanied Captain James Cook on his voyage around the world between 1768 and 1771.

Black-fronted Parakeet

It was discovered on James Cook's first voyage in 1769, on which the two specimens now in Liverpool and the one in the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum in Tring appear to have been collected.

Cook Cup

The cup is named after Captain James Cook, representing a strong English-Australian connection.

Cook Islands art

Captain James Cook recorded tatau as the Tahitian term when he arrived there in 1769, although tatau is not the only word for this art form.

Dalyup River

The first European to discover the river was Surveyor General John Septimus Roe in 1848 who named it the Gore River after one of Captain James Cook's crew from the Endeavour, Lieutenant John Gore.

David Cordingly

David Cordingly organised several exhibitions at the National Maritime Museum, including Captain James Cook, Navigator and The Mutiny on the Bounty.

Democratic Party of the Friendly Islands

The "Friendly Islands" are a name originally given to Tonga by Captain James Cook.

Edward Howard, 9th Duke of Norfolk

James Cook named Norfolk Island in honour of the Duchess of Norfolk in 1774, although he did not know at the time that she was already dead.

Endeavour River National Park

HM Bark Endeavour, under the command of Lieutenant James Cook, had struck reefs and been pulled ashore for repairs along the river locally known within Guugu Yimithirr as Wabalumbaal, possibly near the present site of Cooktown.

Fatafehi 'o Lapaha

Fatafehi 'o Lapaha's father, Paulaho was the Sacred King when Captain James Cook visited in 1777.

Foreign relations of Kiribati

The first British visitor to Kiribati was reputed to be Commodore John Byron in 1765, the immediate predecessor of James Cook's more famous explorations of the Pacific between 1769-1779.

Foreign relations of Tonga

The British explorer James Cook led expeditions to Tonga in 1773, 1774 and 1777.

François-Gabriel D'Angeac

When D’Angeac was appointed governor, Sir Charles Douglas delayed D'Angeac while Captain James Cook worked quickly to complete his survey of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.

GRV James Cook

The ship was renamed James Cook after Captain James Cook and used as a research vessel until 1991, when it was replaced by the RV Tangaroa.

Heinrich Zimmermann

He spent time working at this in Geneva, Lyons and Paris before he arrived in London in 1776 where, after a short period of working in a sugar refinery, he joined HMS Discovery as an able seaman on 12 March of that year for James Cook's third voyage to the Pacific.

Henderson Petrel

During Captain Cook's first voyage, Daniel Solander recorded in his manuscript on the 21 March 1769 his observations on a new petrel, on which he named Procellaria atrata. Solander's account only became known when Gregory Mathews published Solander's account in 1912.

Herman Spöring, Sr.

His son Herman Diedrich Spöring Jr. (or Spoering) (1733-1771), a Finnish explorer and botanist, was one of the scientific personnel who accompanied James Cook on the 1768-71 HM Bark Endeavour expedition to the Pacific.

Hope Islands National Park

The Hope islands were named by Lt James Cook in June 1770, as his ship HMS Endeavour edged its way northward along the eastern Australian coastline during his first voyage in the Pacific.

Human rights in Australia

The navigator James Cook claimed the east coast of Australia for Britain in 1770, without conducting negotiations with the Indigenous Australians.

Jane Gomeldon

According to the Dictionary of National Biography, she fell in love with the name of Captain James Cook and wished to accompany him on his first voyage around the world.

John Dory

In New Zealand, Māori know it as kuparu, and on the East Coast of the North Island, they gave some to Captain James Cook on his first voyage to New Zealand in 1769.

Joseph Cook

Although there is a seat called Cook, that was named not after the Prime Minister but after Captain James Cook.

Josiah Symon

In 1907 he visited the Public Record Office in London while on a holiday, and campaigned for the logs of Captain James Cook's ships HM Bark Endeavour and HMS Resolution to be brought to Australia, in the same way that the log of the Mayflower had been taken to Boston in the United States.

Kamakahelei

She was the sovereign of the Island of Kauai at the time Captain James Cook land on the Kauaian shores.

Karen Hesse

Stowaway, based on the true story of an 11-year-old boy who stowed away on Captain James Cook's ship Endeavour in 1768.

Mack Super-Liner

The special limited edition models were named after people influential to Australian history, including James Cook, Captain Bligh, Ludwig Leichhardt, Governor Phillip, Ned Kelly, Kingsford Smith, and John Flynn.

Mount Edgecumbe High School

The school is named for Mount Edgecumbe which is located on Kruzof Island, a dormant volcano visible from Mt. Edgecumbe High School's campus, which was, in turn, named for George, Earl of Edgecumbe, by British Captain James Cook.

Murwillumbah High School

Captain James Cook had sighted, mapped and named Mount Warning in the Murwillumbah area as he sailed up the coast in 1770 and the fortnightly school newsletter ‘Endeavour’, is named in honour of his ship.

Nathaniel Lees

He got his first acting job because of "being brown", as the theatre required brown people running around on stage killing Captain Cook.

Old St. Paul's, Wellington

There is a plaque in memory of Wellington historian J.C. Beaglehole, most famous for his biography of explorer James Cook, but who also played a significant role in the fight to save Old St. Paul's from demolition.

Pedro Fernandes de Queirós

In the 19th century some Australian Catholics, living under a Protestant ascendancy, claimed that Queirós had in fact discovered Australia, in advance of the Protestants Willem Janszoon, Abel Tasman and James Cook.

Dalrymple provided a sketch map which included the Queirós -Torres voyages to Joseph Banks who undoubtedly passed this information to James Cook.

Phantom island

The Baja California peninsula appears on some early maps as an island but was later discovered to be attached to the mainland of North America; likewise Banks Peninsula off the South Island of New Zealand which was originally called "Banks Island" by Captain James Cook.

Rob Inglis

His plays include Voyage of the Endeavour (1965), based on the journal of Captain James Cook; Canterbury Tales (1968), dramatised readings from Chaucer; Erf (1971), a one-actor play about the twenty-first century; A Rum Do (1970), a musical based on the governorship of Lachlan Macquarie; and Men Who Shaped Australia, for Better or for Worse (1968), a one-actor play dealing with significant historical figures.

Sammlung für Völkerkunde

The collection consists of approximately 17,000 items and focuses on the South Pacific with the Cook-Forster collection, containing items from Hawaii, Tahiti, Tonga, and New Zealand, and on Siberia and the polar regions with the Baron von Asch collection.

Stylidium subg. Andersonia

This subgenus occurs in areas of tropical northern Australia and into Southeast Asia and was named in honour of William Anderson, the surgeon and naturalist who sailed with James Cook.

Swedish Museum of Natural History

One of the keepers of the collections of the Academy during its earlier history was Anders Sparrman, a student of Linnaeus and participant in the voyages of Captain James Cook.

Tupaia

Tupaia (navigator) — an 18th Century Tahitian navigator, arioi ("high priest") of local noble lineage, who accompanied Lt. James Cook as navigational guide on the latter's famous first voyage of discovery in HM Bark Endeavour.

Vanessa Collingridge

In 2000 she quit her television presenter's job on Tonight with Trevor McDonald to author two biographies, one of eighteenth century explorer James Cook and one of Celtic warrior queen Boudica.

White-winged Sandpiper

Two specimens were collected by William Anderson between September 30 and October 11, 1777, during Captain Cook’s third voyage, but both have since disappeared and the bird became extinct in the nineteenth century.

Wollongong to Thirroul Bike Track

It goes to Waniora Point, where a plaque commemorates Captain James Cooks first landing attempt, and then along the coast to Sandon/Bulli Point, site of migratory bird refuge at Tramway Creek.

Zeeland

Captain James Cook of Britain subsequently called the archipelago New Zealand and soon after, British settlers arrived in New Zealand and English became the main language.


Augustus Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol

Bristol Island, a five mile long ice-covered quake-prone chain of volcanos in the South Sandwich Islands, was also named in honor of Hervey by Captain James Cook.

Hervey Bay, Queensland, a bay and city in Australia, was named after him by Captain James Cook while carrying out the survey of the east coast of Australia on 22 May 1770.

Division of Banks

The division was created in 1949 and is named for Sir Joseph Banks, the British scientist who accompanied James Cook on his voyage to Australia in 1770.

George Collingridge

Collingridge's distant relative, Vanessa Collingridge, published a book on Captain Cook, entitled Captain Cook (2002), and the publication of this book has caused a certain resurgence of interest in George Collingridge in recent years.

Henry Jerome de Salis

Harriet Blosset was the girl who in 1768 had been led to believe by Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) that he would marry her on his return from his journey with Cook on the Endeavour.

Hikutaia

James Cook and Joseph Banks rowed up the Waihou River on 20 November 1769 and disembarked near Hikutaia.

HMNZS Endeavour

HMNZS Endeavour may refer to one of the following ships of the Royal New Zealand Navy named in honour of Captain Cook's Bark Endeavour.

Joseph Banks: A Life

The biography covers Banks' life including his voyages to Newfoundland and the most famous episode, the three-year voyage of the HM Bark Endeavour, captained by James Cook.

Menabe

Among its most famous rulers was Ranaimo or Andriandrainarivo (ruled 1718-1727) who is known through the memoirs of Europeans such as Robert Drury, James Cook, Barnvelt (1719), Valentyn (1726).

National Oceanography Centre, Southampton

On 25 March 2010 an expedition aboard the RRS James Cook set out to study the world's deepest volcanic rift.

Observatory Inlet

Vancouver also named three headlands at the entrance of Observatory Inlet: Maskelyne Point, for Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal, Wales Point, for William Wales, the mathematical master who sailed with James Cook, and Ramsden Point, after the famed mathematical instrument-maker Jesse Ramsden.

Port Jackson

The first recorded European discovery of Sydney Harbour, was by Lieutenant James Cook in 1770 - Cook named the inlet after Sir George Jackson, (one of the Lord Commissioners of the British Admiralty, and Judge Advocate of the Fleet).

Tanna Ground Dove

The better-known was a female which was sketched by Georg Forster at Tanna during the second circumnavigation by James Cook to the South Sea in August 1774.

Tongatapu Rail

It is known only from brief descriptions of a specimen, now lost, collected from Tongatapu in 1777 in the course of James Cook’s third voyage to the Pacific, and from a contemporary illustration by Georg Forster.

Whitsunday Islands

The term is a mis-nomer, based as it is on Captain Cook’s naming of what is now known as the Whitsunday Passage (in Cook’s Journal, Whitsunday’s Passage) in the belief that the passage was discovered on Whitsunday, The Sunday of the feast of Whitsun or Pentecost in the Christian liturgical year, observed 7 weeks after Easter.