Offers insight into the historical events that prompted Columbus' efforts to establish new trade routes to the Indies, his struggles to obtain financial support for his voyages, and the important discoveries that caused him to become known as the "Great Admiral of the Seas."

For more than two centuries, E pluribus unum -- Out of many, one -- has been featured on America's official government seals and stamped on its currency. But how did America become "one nation, indivisible"? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? In this monumental history, Simon Winchester addresses these questions, bringing together the breathtaking achievements that helped forge and unify America...

A whaler's daughter, Flora Mackie first crossed the Arctic Circle at the age of 12 and fell in love with the unforgiving terrain, and, in 1889, despite those who believe that a woman has no place in this harsh world, she heads back to Greenland at the head of a British expedition.

The remarkable story of one of the great pioneering women adventures of the 19th century.
Intrepid journalist Nellie Bly raced through a 'man's world' — alone and literally with just the clothes on her back — to beat the fictional record set by Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days. She won the race on 25 January 1890, covering 21,740 miles by ocean liner and train in 72 days, and became a global celebrity. Although best...

A picture book biography tells the story of Sylvia Earle's growing passion for the wonders of the sea and how her ocean exploration and advocacy have made her known around the world.

"In 1925, the legendary British explorer Percy Fawcett ventured into the Amazon jungle in search of a fabled civilization located deep in the deadly wilderness. He never returned. In this masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, journalist David Grann tells the epic story of Fawcett's quest for this 'Lost City of Z," and unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century."--page 4 of cover

""Don't take women when you go exploring!" In 1932, Roy Chapman Andrews, the president of the Explorers Club, told hundreds of female students at Barnard College that women and exploration could never mix. He obviously didn't know a thing about either...The Girl Explorers is the inspirational and untold story of the women who broke apart the stuffy men's club and founded the Society of Woman Geographers (SWG), and how some key members--including Blair...

"Bound for Antarctica, where polar explorer Ernest Shackleton planned to cross on foot the last uncharted continent, the Endurance set sail from England in August 1914. In January 1915, after battling its way for six weeks through a thousand miles of pack ice and now only a day's sail short of its destination, the Endurance became locked in an island of ice. For ten months the ice-moored Endurance drifted northwest before it was finally crushed. But...

Illustrations and simple text tell a story of Dora's sleepover at Boots' house.

For millennia the location of the Nile River's headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the nineteenth century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. European powers sent off waves of explorers intending to map the unknown corners of the globe -- and extend their colonial empires. Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. Burton, a decorated soldier, was mercurial, subtle,...