59 Fun Facts About James Cook

The cottage of Cook's parents was shipped from England in 1934 and rebuilt in which Australian city?

Melbourne. A local businessman bought the cottage for the city's centenary, and every brick was numbered and packed into cases and barrels, along with cuttings of the ivy from its walls.

In which county was James Cook born in 1728?

Yorkshire. His father, a Scottish farm labourer, worked his way up to farm foreman at Great Ayton, where the boy had a few years at the village school before joining him in the fields.

Before he went to sea, the teenage Cook was apprenticed in Staithes to which trade?

Grocer and haberdasher. He lasted about eighteen months behind the counter before his employer helped him swap the shop for an apprenticeship with a Whitby shipowner.

Cook's diary boast of going 'farther than any other man has been before me' resembles the opening of which TV series?

Star Trek. Cook wrote the line in 1774, after pack ice had stopped him farther south than any ship had sailed, nearly two centuries before the Enterprise set out 'where no man has gone before'.

What did Cook turn down in 1755 to join the Navy as an able seaman?

Command of the collier Friendship. Starting again at the bottom paid off fast: within weeks the Navy had made him a master's mate, and two years later he qualified as a ship's master.

Cook's charts of the St Lawrence helped which general mount his night attack on Quebec in 1759?

James Wolfe put his army ashore above the city in the dark and won on the Plains of Abraham, but he was shot as the French line broke and died on the field.

Which coast did Cook spend five seasons charting in the 1760s, before his Pacific voyages?

Newfoundland. His charts set a new standard and stayed in use for about a century, and the skill they showed brought him to the Admiralty's notice just as it needed a commander for the Pacific.

How did Cook badly injure his right hand in August 1764?

A powder horn exploded in his hand, leaving a deep scar between thumb and fingers. Fifteen years later that scar let his crew recognise his remains.

Which astronomical event did Cook observe on the 1766 Grenville survey, drawing the Royal Society's attention?

A solar eclipse. An astronomer set Cook's timings against the same eclipse watched from Oxford to work out his longitude, and the result was printed by the Royal Society.

What was the publicly stated goal of Cook's first voyage?

To observe a transit of Venus from Tahiti, so astronomers could work out the distance to the Sun. Secret orders then sent Cook south to look for an unknown continent.

What was HMS Endeavour called before the Navy bought and renamed her?

Earl of Pembroke. She was a plain Whitby coal ship, picked for her big hold and a flat, sturdy hull that could take the ground, which is what saved her crew when she struck a reef.

Though remembered as Captain Cook, what rank did Cook hold when he sailed the Endeavour to the Pacific?

Lieutenant. He was a warrant officer until the spring he sailed and was hurriedly commissioned for the voyage; he was made a captain only after his second Pacific voyage.

Which wealthy young naturalist sailed on the Endeavour, paying for seven others to join him?

Joseph Banks went on to lead the Royal Society, and it was his advice to Parliament that sent Britain's first convict fleet to the coast he had explored with Cook.

Which pastime did the Endeavour's naturalist watch Tahitians enjoy in May 1769, leaving an early European description of it?

Surfing. He stood for half an hour watching ten or twelve islanders ride the breakers on the stern of an old canoe, in a sea where he thought no European boat could have landed.

Which Polynesian priest joined the Endeavour in 1769 and enabled Cook to talk with the Māori?

Tupaia found that the Māori understood his own language, so he spoke for Cook all around New Zealand. He fell ill on the way home and died before he could see England.

What did Cook leave on the Hawaiian island of Niʻihau in 1778, as he did on many Pacific islands?

A breeding pair of pigs. Cook's ships carried livestock and garden seeds to hand out along the way, in the hope that islanders would raise new herds and crops from them.

Where in New Zealand did Cook first land in October 1769?

Poverty Bay. Cook chose the name as he sailed out because the place 'afforded us no one thing we wanted': clashes in which several Māori were shot had ended any hope of trade.

Cook's 1769 landing in New Zealand was the first known European visit since which Dutch navigator sighted it in 1642?

Abel Tasman never set foot ashore and saw only the west coast. Cook sailed right round, found the strait that splits the country into two main islands, and mapped almost all of it.

Which headland, named for the officer who spotted it, was the Endeavour's first sight of Australia in 1770?

Point Hicks honours Zachary Hicks, the officer who was first to see the land. He never told the story at home: he died of consumption on the voyage back to England.

Where did Cook make his first landfall on the Australian continent, on 29 April 1770?

Botany Bay. Cook first named it for the stingrays his men caught, then changed his mind when the ship's naturalists came back loaded with plants new to science.

What did Cook's crew throw overboard to float the Endeavour off the Great Barrier Reef?

Her cannons: six went over the side with the ballast, and she floated off about a day later, leaking badly. The crew slowed the leak by hauling a sail packed with oakum and wool under the hull.

Which animal did Cook see for the first time while the ship was being repaired at the Endeavour River?

A kangaroo. The crew wrote down a local name for it, probably the Guugu Yimithirr word for one large kind, and it has been the English word for the animal ever since.

At which Dutch port did the Endeavour stop for repairs in October 1770, sparking a deadly outbreak?

Batavia, now Jakarta. Cook's crew sailed in healthy after two years at sea, and fever and dysentery picked up in the port went on to kill about thirty of them.

Which food did Cook coax his reluctant crew into eating on the Endeavour?

Sauerkraut. The men refused it until Cook had it served daily at the officers' table and let the crew help themselves; within a week it was so popular that he had to ration it.

Which island did Cook visit in 1774, half a century after a Dutch captain named it for the feast he arrived on?

Easter Island. Cook picked out its giant statues by telescope before he anchored, but the water was bad and food scarce, so he sailed on within days.

Why did the first voyage's naturalist withdraw from Cook's second?

A row over changes to the ship: the extra deck and cabin built for his party made her top-heavy, the dockyard cut them away again, and he quit rather than accept less room.

Which Pacific island group did Cook name the Friendly Islands?

Tonga. When Cook first landed there, a cheering crowd met his boats without a weapon among them, and people threw bales of cloth aboard without waiting for anything in return.

In January 1773 Cook's crews became the first recorded Europeans to cross what?

The Antarctic Circle. Pack ice turned the ships back that same evening, and in three voyages Cook never once set eyes on the continent that lay beyond it.

Which sealer beat Cook's farthest south in 1823, in the sea now named after him?

James Weddell, hunting for seals in an unusually mild season, sailed three degrees past Cook's 71°10′S. Cook had turned back at solid pack ice, judging any attempt to go farther rash.

What did the Forsters sacrifice to make soup for the bedridden Cook in February 1774?

Their pet dog. With no other fresh meat aboard it went into the pot, and Cook wrote that he drew strength from food 'which would have made most people in Europe sick'.

Which fish's liver did Cook taste in New Caledonia in 1774, leaving him numb and barely able to walk?

A pufferfish. Cook and his two naturalists only tasted the liver and roe, yet woke in the night numb and weak; a pig that ate the scraps was dead by morning.

How did Cook respond to the Māori who had killed the Adventure's boat crew?

Took no revenge. Cook decided the killings had come out of a sudden quarrel, not a plan, and left the man named as their leader unharmed, to the surprise of Māori who expected him to be killed.

The watch Cook tested on his second voyage was a copy of which clockmaker's sea watch?

John Harrison's sea watch was copied by Larcum Kendall, and Cook came to call the copy 'our never-failing guide', proof that a clock could fix a ship's longitude far from land.

Which Atlantic island did Cook chart and claim in January 1775, on the way home from his second voyage?

South Georgia. Cook found it deep in snow at midsummer and claimed it anyway, doubting that anyone 'would ever be benefited by the discovery'.

For what did the Royal Society award Cook its Copley Gold Medal?

A paper on preventing scurvy. Cook had just brought a crew through three years at sea without losing one man to the disease, a feat rare enough to rank beside his discoveries.

What was the primary, secret objective of Cook's third voyage?

To find a North-West Passage. Cook gave up a comfortable retirement post to try, drawn by a sea route that had beaten Europe's sailors for nearly 300 years and now carried a £20,000 prize.

Who served as sailing master of the Resolution on Cook's third voyage?

William Bligh. A decade after Cook's death he was commanding the Bounty when her crew mutinied and cast him adrift in an open boat.

What did Cook's crew find on the shore of Kerguelen Island in December 1776?

A message in a bottle, left by an earlier French expedition. Cook wrote his own ships' names on the back, dropped in a silver coin, resealed the bottle and hid it under a pile of stones.

On Mo'orea in 1777, what stolen animal prompted Cook to spend two days destroying canoes and huts?

A goat, from the ships' own livestock. Cook's men burned houses and war canoes until it was handed back, and he wrote afterwards that he regretted the affair as much as the islanders did.

What name did Cook give the Hawaiian archipelago?

The Sandwich Islands, after the Earl of Sandwich, the Admiralty chief who backed Cook's voyages and who is said to have given his name to the sandwich as well.

On which island is Nootka Sound, where Cook's ships spent a month refitting in spring 1778?

Vancouver Island, which Cook took for the mainland. It was a young officer on this voyage, George Vancouver, who came back years later and charted the coast in full.

Which strait did Cook sail through in 1778 before ice turned him back?

Bering Strait. Cook pressed on up the Alaskan coast until solid ice barred the way, then crossed to the Siberian shore and retreated south through the strait again.

By which Hawaiian god's name was Cook addressed in the ceremonies at Kealakekua Bay in 1779?

Lono. Cook arrived during Makahiki, the season sacred to Lono, and priests led him through its rites under that name; whether Hawaiians truly took him for the god is still argued over.

Why did Cook's ships return to Kealakekua Bay days after leaving?

A gale broke the Resolution's foremast. Cook went back unwillingly, knowing the bay had little food left to spare, and the welcome had soured into the quarrels that led to his death.

What was Cook trying to do when he was killed on a Hawaiian beach in 1779?

Take the king hostage. A ship's boat had been stolen overnight, and Cook meant to hold the island's ruler until it came back, a move that had worked for him on other islands.

The Endeavour was scuttled as a British troopship in 1778 at Newport, in which future US state?

Rhode Island. Sold off and renamed, she carried troops in the American war and was sunk with other transports to block Newport harbour, where archaeologists went looking for her two centuries later.

What did Cook's crew do with his remains once the Hawaiians returned them?

Buried them at sea, to minute guns and flags at half mast. Only part of the body ever came back: some bones and the hands, handed over after days of skirmishes and a truce.

The news of Cook's death beat his ships home by travelling overland across which empire?

The Russian Empire. Cook's successor handed his journal and a letter to the governor in Kamchatka, and they were carried across Siberia to reach London eleven months after the death.

What did Cook's widow do with the letters he had sent her?

Destroyed them. For the rest of her long life she wore a ring holding a lock of his hair and kept the anniversaries of his death and their sons' as days of fasting, shut in her room.

After Cook's death, what did the King grant his family that shows a globe marked with his Pacific routes?

A coat of arms. His widow asked for it so that it could be shown on his memorials, and its shield sets the globe and his routes, picked out in red, between two pole stars.

Which two Polynesian words entered English through Cook's voyages?

Taboo and tattoo. Both are first recorded in English in Cook's own writing, and some of his sailors went a step further and came home from Tahiti with tattoos of their own.

The Cook-Forster Collection from Cook's voyages is kept at a university in which country?

Germany. A professor at the University of Göttingen had the pieces brought to its museum in the late 1700s, and part of the collection was gathered by Johann and Georg Forster, the naturalists of Cook's second voyage.

Which headland did Cook name in hindsight, once the Endeavour had struck a reef just past it?

Cape Tribulation. Cook wrote that this was where 'all our troubles' began: the ship ran onto coral hours after passing it, and patching her up in a river mouth cost about seven weeks.

Which French fortress, guarding the way to the St Lawrence, did Cook help besiege in 1758?

Louisbourg. Soon after it fell, Cook met an army surveyor, Samuel Holland, who taught him to map with a plane table, and the charts he drew from then on made his name.

Cook's first map to be engraved and printed, drawn in 1758, showed which bay on a Quebec peninsula?

Gaspé Bay. Cook charted it while his ship was there raiding French fishing settlements, and the result was judged good enough to be printed in London the following year.

Which Alaskan city now stands at the head of the inlet Cook explored in 1778, later named after him?

Anchorage. Cook took the inlet for nothing more than a river mouth and went up it mainly to satisfy officers who hoped for more; it was given his name after his death.

In which university city, where their youngest son had studied, are Cook's widow and two sons buried beside his memorial?

Cambridge. Hugh Cook died of fever in his first year there as a student, and his mother, who outlived her husband by 56 years and all six of their children, was laid beside him.

Why did the Admiralty refuse the geographer Alexander Dalrymple command of the 1768 Pacific voyage?

Not a naval officer. The First Lord is said to have sworn he would sooner lose his right hand than let anyone but a King's officer command a navy ship, so the job went to Cook.

After a quarrel over turtles in 1770, what did an Aboriginal elder carry to Cook's party as a sign of peace?

A spear with no tip. The gesture ended the stand-off, and in 1959 the town that grew up on the spot began re-enacting the landing each year, with Guugu Yimithirr people among the cast.