50 Fun Facts About Adventure

Which two men were the first confirmed to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on 29 May 1953?

News reached London in time for the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation on 2 June. Colonel John Hunt led the expedition.

What happened to Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance in the Weddell Sea in 1915?

Its 28 men camped on the drifting ice for months. The remarkably preserved wreck was found on the seafloor in 2022.

What was the name of the lifeboat Shackleton and five men sailed 800 miles to South Georgia?

He then arranged the rescue of the men left on Elephant Island and brought every one of them home alive.

Roald Amundsen led the first expedition to traverse which sea route, in 1903–06, aboard the sloop Gjøa?

Five years later he beat Scott to the South Pole, having sailed to Antarctica in the Fram.

By how many days did Amundsen's party beat Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole in 1911–12?

Scott's five-man party reached the pole on 17 January 1912 and all died on the return journey.

Which member of Scott's party left the tent saying 'I am just going outside and may be some time'?

Scott, Wilson and Bowers died in a blizzard eleven miles short of One Ton Depot; their bodies were found eight months later.

Who completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth in 1522 after Magellan was killed?

Magellan had made the first European crossing of the Pacific and found the strait that bears his name before dying in battle in 1521.

Marco Polo dictated the story of his travels while imprisoned by which rival of Venice?

His cellmate Rustichello da Pisa wrote it down. He had spent 24 years away, much of it at the court of Kublai Khan.

Which 14th-century Moroccan traveller covered around 117,000 km, more than any pre-modern explorer?

His account is known as The Rihla. Zheng He managed about 50,000 km and Marco Polo 24,000.

How many 'treasure voyages' did Ming admiral Zheng He command between 1405 and 1433?

Legend says his largest ships were almost twice as long as any wooden ship ever recorded. He was born Ma He, a Muslim, and became a eunuch at court.

Which US president commissioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition?

The Corps of Discovery left Camp Dubois in May 1804, crossed the Continental Divide at Lemhi Pass and reached the Pacific in 1805.

Which teenage Shoshone woman travelled with Lewis and Clark from North Dakota to the Pacific?

Suffragists later adopted her as a symbol of women's worth and independence, raising statues in her memory.

Which Scottish missionary-explorer was the first European to see the falls he named after Queen Victoria?

He mapped most of the Zambezi. Six years out of contact, he was found at Ujiji in 1871 by Henry Morton Stanley: 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?'

Percy Fawcett vanished in the Amazon in 1925 while searching for what?

His son Jack and Jack's friend Raleigh Rimmel disappeared with him. David Grann's book The Lost City of Z retold the story.

Which Black explorer, Peary's companion on seven Arctic voyages, said he reached the North Pole first?

Peary hired Henson as a valet after meeting him in a Washington hat shop in 1887. Historians now doubt Peary actually reached the Pole.

Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis nonstop from New York to Paris in 1927 to win what?

The $25,000 prize was for the first flight between the two cities. He flew alone for more than 33 hours.

Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific in 1937 while attempting what?

She and navigator Fred Noonan were flying a Lockheed Electra 10E she called her 'flying laboratory', bound for Howland Island.

What was Thor Heyerdahl's raft Kon-Tiki made from?

He and five companions sailed 6,900 km in 101 days in 1947 before hitting a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotus.

The raft Kon-Tiki was named after an old name for which Inca god?

The 1950 documentary won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature; a 2012 dramatisation was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.

Jacques Cousteau co-invented which piece of equipment, the first successful open-circuit scuba apparatus?

His film The Silent World, co-directed with Louis Malle, won the 1956 Palme d'Or, a rare feat for a documentary.

In 1960 the bathyscaphe Trieste reached the seabed's deepest point in which ocean feature?

They reached about 10,916 metres in the Challenger Deep. The vessel was designed by Piccard's father, Auguste.

Reinhold Messner was the first person to climb all 14 of what?

He did it all without supplementary oxygen, and made the first solo ascent of Everest. He later served in the European Parliament.

Who was the first woman to reach the summit of Everest, in 1975?

She was also the first woman to complete the Seven Summits, and a mountain range on Pluto is named Tabei Montes after her.

Which English explorer first reached both poles by surface means and first crossed Antarctica on foot?

He climbed Everest at 65. In 1984 the Guinness Book of Records' Norris McWhirter called him the greatest living explorer.

Aron Ralston freed himself from a boulder in a Utah canyon in 2003 by doing what?

He then rappelled 65 feet and hiked seven miles before being rescued. James Franco played him in 127 Hours.

Alex Honnold's rope-free climb of El Capitan, filmed for Free Solo, was on which route?

The film won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature and the People's Choice documentary award at Toronto.

Yuri Gagarin's Vostok 1 flight in April 1961 lasted how long?

He completed a single orbit and became the first human in space, launching from Baikonur.

Which Apollo 11 astronaut stayed in lunar orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the Moon?

All three men were on their second and final spaceflight. The Saturn V launched from Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969.

Phileas Fogg's wager to circle the globe in 80 days is made with his friends at which London institution?

The bet is £20,000. He wins because travelling east he gained a day, experiencing 80 sunrises while London saw 79.

What is the name of Phileas Fogg's French valet?

Fogg hired him after sacking his previous valet for serving shaving water at the wrong temperature.

In how many days did Nellie Bly circle the world in 1889–90, beating Phileas Fogg?

She set out with two days' notice aboard the Augusta Victoria; the New York World ran a guessing match on her arrival time.

Stevenson's pirate novel was serialised in Young Folks in 1881–82 under a longer title ending with what?

Robert Louis Stevenson published it under the pseudonym 'Captain George North'. His working title had been The Sea Cook.

At which inn does young Jim Hawkins first meet the old sailor Billy Bones?

Bones warns him to beware 'a seafaring man with one leg'. Treasure Island gave popular culture the X-marked map and the parrot on the shoulder.

How many years does Robinson Crusoe spend on his desert island?

Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel is often called the first English novel, though the label is disputed.

Which real castaway is Robinson Crusoe thought to be based on?

Selkirk spent four years on Más a Tierra in the Juan Fernández Islands, now renamed Robinson Crusoe Island.

What is Indiana Jones's academic profession?

Harrison Ford has played Dr. Henry Walton Jones Jr. in all five films, beginning with Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981.

Which Indiana Jones film, released in 1984, is a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Steven Spielberg directed the first four films; James Mangold took over for Dial of Destiny in 2023.

Bear Grylls became the youngest-ever Chief Scout of the UK in 2009 at what age?

He held the post until 2024, the second-longest tenure after Robert Baden-Powell himself. He is a former SAS trooper.

Shackleton's earlier Nimrod Expedition of 1907–09 turned back how far from the South Pole?

He set a new Farthest South at 88°23′S. His first taste of the Antarctic had been on Scott's Discovery expedition, from which he was sent home ill.

On which ship did Amundsen sail to Antarctica for his South Pole expedition?

He set up camp at the Bay of Whales and laid supply depots on the Ross Ice Shelf before setting out for the pole in October 1911.

Where did the Lewis and Clark Expedition spend the winter of 1805–06 before starting home?

The return journey began on March 23, 1806, and ended six months later, on September 23.

Which university funded Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra 'flying laboratory'?

It gave $50,000 through the Amelia Earhart Fund for Aeronautical Research. The plane was built at Lockheed's Burbank plant.

Which newspaper sent Henry Morton Stanley to find Livingstone in 1869?

Stanley later tore the pages describing the famous greeting out of his diary, so the exact words may be a fabrication.

How long did Alex Honnold take to free-solo El Capitan in June 2017?

The route is graded 5.13a; no one had free-soloed a big wall at that difficulty before. One cameraman kept turning away.

What was Marco Polo's book of travels known as in Italian?

It gave Europeans their first comprehensive look at China under the Yuan dynasty, Persia, India and Japan.

Who was the first person to sail single-handedly around the world, aboard the sloop Spray?

He rebuilt the old oyster boat in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, in 1891-92 and vanished aboard her in November 1909.

Steve Fossett was the first to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon and in what else?

He held records for five nonstop circumnavigations, including one as a sailor.

Robyn Davidson's 1980 book Tracks recounts a 2,700 km Australian desert trek using what?

She spent two years in Alice Springs training the animals and learning to survive in the desert.

In which balloon did Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones first fly non-stop around the globe?

Piccard later initiated and co-piloted Solar Impulse, the first round-the-world solar-powered flight.

On 20 May 1498, Vasco da Gama completed the first sea route from Europe to India by landing where?

He crossed the Indian Ocean from Malindi in Kenya, ten years after Bartolomeu Dias had rounded the Cape of Good Hope.