60 Fun Facts About James Cook

How many voyages of exploration to the Pacific did James Cook lead?

They ran from 1768 to 1779; he never lost a ship on any of them.

In which county was James Cook born in 1728?

His father was a Scottish farm labourer; the village of Marton lay about eight miles from the sea.

To what trade was 16-year-old Cook first apprenticed, unsuccessfully, in Staithes?

After 18 months he moved to Whitby and joined the Walker brothers' coal ships.

What was the name of the collier on which Cook served his first assignment as a merchant navy apprentice?

He carried coal between the Tyne and London and studied navigation and astronomy on the side.

What did Cook decline in 1755 in order to join the Royal Navy as an able seaman?

He enlisted at Wapping on 17 June 1755 as Britain armed for the Seven Years' War.

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

He had learned land-surveying from army officer Samuel Holland after the fall of Louisbourg.

Which coast did Cook spend five seasons charting in the 1760s aboard HMS Grenville?

His charts were more accurate than those the Royal Navy made a century later.

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

The scar later identified his remains in Hawaii.

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

Comparing his timings with Oxford's gave a longitude difference he used in his sailing directions.

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

Secret orders also told him to search for Terra Australis and claim lands for Britain.

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

A Whitby collier, she had a big hold, a shallow draught and could be beached for repairs.

How old was Cook when he was chosen to command the Endeavour in May 1768?

He sat his lieutenant's exam the very next day; the rank was needed to command a ship with her armament.

Which wealthy 25-year-old naturalist sailed on the Endeavour, paying for seven others to join him?

He later became President of the Royal Society and promoted the Australian colony.

What did Cook and his crew become the first Europeans to witness on Tahiti in May 1769?

He also composed his first anthropological essay that voyage, on the Haush of Tierra del Fuego.

Which Tahitian priest joined the Endeavour and enabled Cook to talk with the Māori?

He also explained Polynesian navigation and helped Cook chart the South Pacific islands.

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

He planted gardens and left breeding livestock across the Pacific for islanders and future British visitors.

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

The first two days' encounters with the Māori turned violent and several were shot dead.

What did Cook establish about New Zealand on his first voyage?

He circumnavigated both main islands and mapped almost the whole coastline.

Which headland on the Australian coast did the Endeavour sight on 19 April 1770?

It was named for his second lieutenant, Zachary Hicks; the crew were the first Europeans on the east coast.

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

Two Gweagal men opposed the landing and one was wounded with small shot; the crew stayed a week.

How long was the Endeavour stuck on the Great Barrier Reef in June 1770?

Six cannons went overboard, and the crew fothered the leak with a sail before beaching her for seven weeks.

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

One was killed and Banks documented the species; the local Guugu Yimithirr mostly kept away.

Where did Cook claim the whole surveyed east coast of Australia for Britain?

He then turned west through the Torres Strait.

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

Seven died there and 23 more on the way home, mostly of dysentery and malaria.

How many crew did Cook lose to scurvy on his first circumnavigation?

He gave the crew wort and fresh food and made them wash and air their bedding; the Royal Society gave him the Copley Medal.

Which two ships did Cook take on his second voyage?

Tobias Furneaux commanded the Adventure; both were Whitby colliers like the Endeavour.

Why did the naturalist of the first voyage withdraw from the second?

He was replaced by the German naturalists Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg.

What experiment did Cook perform with icebergs in November 1772?

It proved a ship could resupply from sea ice.

On 17 January 1773 Cook's crews became the first recorded Europeans to cross what?

He came within 75 miles of Antarctica the next day without ever sighting it.

What was the most southerly latitude the Resolution reached, in January 1774?

Impenetrable pack ice stopped her; Cook wrote that no man in his situation would have thought of going further.

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

He had a severe gastrointestinal illness and the ship was out of fresh meat.

What did Cook eat in New Caledonia in 1774 that left him numb and unable to walk?

Georg Forster had warned him; emetics saved him. He was the first European to set foot on New Caledonia.

How many of the Adventure's crew were killed and partly eaten by Māori in December 1773?

Furneaux left for home without Cook; Cook later refused to punish the Māori responsible.

Which chronometer, a copy of Harrison's H4, did Cook test on his second and third voyages?

It performed well and Cook praised it profusely, helping settle the longitude problem.

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

He went on to discover another island group to the east, which he also named for the Earl of Sandwich.

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

He was also made a Fellow and painted by Nathaniel Dance-Holland.

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

Publicly, the aim was returning the Polynesian Mai to Tahiti.

Which future mutiny-victim served as master of the Resolution on the third voyage?

George Vancouver was among the midshipmen; Clerke commanded the Discovery.

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

Cook added his own details, raised the flag and gave the island its name.

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

Several of his crew thought the retaliation excessive; Cook never explained it.

What name did Cook give the Hawaiian archipelago?

He honoured the fourth Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty; the crew first saw them on 18 January 1778.

Where did Cook's ships spend a month in spring 1778, in Nootka Sound?

He had unwittingly sailed past the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the way.

At what latitude was Cook blocked by sea ice off Alaska in August 1778?

He had passed through the Bering Strait into the Chukchi Sea and then followed the Siberian coast back south.

Which Polynesian god did many Hawaiians take Cook to be an embodiment of?

His arrival at Kealakekua Bay coincided with the Makahiki harvest festival in Lono's honour.

Why did Cook's ships return to Kealakekua Bay shortly after leaving in February 1779?

Relations were already strained; a stolen cutter then set off the fatal chain of events.

What was Cook attempting to do when he was killed on 14 February 1779?

King Kalaniʻōpuʻu's wife pleaded with him not to go; a crowd formed and Cook and four marines died.

How many Hawaiians were killed in the affray in which Cook died?

Cook and four marines were killed and left on the shore.

What was done with the remains of Cook returned by the Hawaiians after a truce?

They included the skull, some bones and the hands, identified by the powder-horn scar.

How long after Cook's death did the news reach London, carried overland from Kamchatka?

Clerke entrusted the journal to the Russian commander Magnus von Behm; it beat the ships home.

How many children did Cook and his wife Elizabeth have?

All died before having children of their own, so Cook has no direct descendants.

What unique honour was granted to Cook's widow in September 1785?

It is the only known example of a coat of arms granted posthumously.

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

His crew called his rages 'heivas' and called him 'Toote'.

Which German university holds the largest collection of artefacts from Cook's voyages?

The Cook-Forster Collection came via the naturalists of the second voyage.

In which Yorkshire village was James Cook born in 1728?

The family moved to Airey Holme farm at Great Ayton in 1736, where his father's employer paid for his schooling.

Which army surveyor taught Cook plane-table methods after the fall of Louisbourg in 1758?

Blending Holland's land surveying with his own hydrography made Cook's charts far more accurate than his rivals'.

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

He also wrote the sailing directions for the preliminary charts of the St. Lawrence entrance.

What Tahitian word did Cook's crew use as a nickname for his fits of temper?

The Tahitians in turn called him 'Toote', and 'Cookees' became their word for Europeans.

Where in Cambridge is the monument beside which Cook's wife and two of his sons are buried?

Other memorials include statues in Sydney's Hyde Park and at St Kilda in Melbourne.

Which rival for the Endeavour command sniffed that he could not admit 'a Pope in Geography or Navigation'?

Otherwise praise was near-universal, with William Cowper and Goethe among those who wrote tributes.

Since 1959 an annual reenactment of Cook's 1770 landing has been held in which Queensland town?

The Guugu Yimithirr people take part, celebrating an elder's peace offering of a broken-tipped spear.