Captain James Cook
One of the nicest stories about James Cook, although it’s completely apocryphal, is that his name was the inspiration for James T Kirk, the first commander of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek, and the ultimate explorer! Why might Captain James Cook have sprung to Gene Roddenberry’s mind when he was creating Star Trek?
James Cook was born in 1728 and learnt to sail in small vessels called 'cats', which travelled up and down the coast from the Tyne to the Thames. He later served with the Royal Navy, and in 1768 won the appointment of commander of HM Endeavour.
In 1769 HM Endeavour was chosen as the navy ship that would accompany Royal Society astronomers on a journey to the Pacific Ocean to record the planet Venus transiting across the sun, a rare phenomenon. After calling in on Tahiti to witness the transit of Venus, Endeavour sailed down to 40º latitude but found no land.
In accordance with instructions issued by the Royal Navy, Cook turned and headed towards New Zealand, which had previously been 'discovered' by the Dutchman Abel Tasman. During the rest of the voyage Cook and his crew charted New Zealand, sailed the east coast of Australia and rediscovered the Torres Strait.
Between 1773 and 1779, Cook sighted and landed on many islands in the southern group of what would come to be known as the Cook Islands, which were much visited by the British at this time: the infamous Captain William Bligh of the Bounty landed on one of them, Aitutaki, in 1789 and in the same year, the mutineers of the Bounty appeared off Rarotonga but, contrary to popular belief, probably did not land. Cook himself named these islands the Hervey Islands. The name ‘Cook Islands’ was given to the group by the Russians to honour of the great English navigator when the island system appeared for the first time on a Russian naval chart in the early 1800s
Cook was a practical seaman, who understood the importance of vitamin C to maintain the health of his crew, because he made great efforts to ward off scurvy, which was caused by vitamin C deficiency. He gave the men vinegar and sauerkraut, which they complained about quite a lot, and while charting the coast of New Zealand in 1769, harvested the grassy plant, known as ‘nau’ by Maori. The grass, a type of cress, proved a valuable food source, but in recent times it was thought to have almost died out, being found only in a handful of small colonies on the west coast of the North Island. Known there as ‘Cook's scurvy grass’, it was found again in March 2006, growing on a tiny island off Waikato, after having been previously thought almost extinct.
On his third and final journey, in command of the Resolution, Cook failed to understand the culture of the highly warlike Hawaiians he encountered when he landed on their island. Misjudging some hostile threat displays that were probably part of a religious rite, he took their king hostage. Then during a brawl in another part of the island, one of the Hawaiian chiefs, Chief Kalimu, was killed by one of Cook's party. News of this reached the king just as Cook was leading him to the Resolution.
The Hawaiians by now distrusted Cook and attacked the English group, which had failed to recognise that it was breaking local religious taboos by sailing into an area out of bounds for religious reasons. Cook did not take part in the fight, but one Hawaiian warrior crept up behind him and hit him with a club. Other warriors then joined in attacking him with daggers, causing him to fall in the water, leading to a very odd claim that Cook was actually killed by a Spanish dagger!
The captain managed to get his head up again, but another warrior’s club found its target - and Cook both drowned and died of his wounds on the same day in 1779.
Other Great Explorers
tenzing, Vancouver, Almagro, Alvarado, Balboa, burton, clark, drake, eriksson, grant, heyerdahl, hillary, humboldt, ingstad, james cook, livingstone, magellan, Piccard, Raleigh, Scott, Shackleton