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Exploration timeline
Journeys, expeditions and encounters across the world.
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Reading the timeline
A wider chronology
Histories of exploration record journeys across oceans, continents, polar regions and the deep sea. They involve navigation, mapping, scientific observation and endurance, but also trade, empire, conflict and encounters with people who already knew the places outsiders described as discoveries.
A responsible timeline distinguishes between a traveller's arrival, a route's documentation and the much longer histories of local and Indigenous knowledge. QuoAnno uses familiar expedition milestones while treating the language of firsts and discoveries with care.
What this category covers
Themes to follow
Navigation and mapping
Tools, routes and charts used to move through unfamiliar environments.
Expeditions
Organized journeys shaped by scientific, political, commercial or personal goals.
Encounter and empire
The unequal exchanges and consequences that followed many celebrated voyages.
Extreme environments
Polar, mountain, desert and ocean journeys that tested people and equipment.
Across the category
Timeline highlights
Zheng He’s first treasure voyage departs
Ming China's treasure fleet undertook maritime expeditions between 1405 and 1433.
Balboa reaches the Pacific from the Americas
Vasco Núñez de Balboa was a Spanish explorer, governor, conquistador, adelantado, and a pirate.
Magellan-Elcano expedition begins first circumnavigation
Ferdinand Magellan died during the expedition; Juan Sebastián Elcano completed the voyage.
Francis Drake completes his circumnavigation
The English explorer Francis Drake circumnavigated the Earth between 13 December 1577 and 26 September 1580.
Bougainville completes a French circumnavigation
Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville was a French military officer and explorer.
Roald Amundsen reaches the South Pole
Robert Falcon Scott’s British team arrived weeks later.
First confirmed ascent of Mount Everest
They were part of a British expedition led by John Hunt.
The wreck of Titanic is located
The wreck of the British ocean liner RMS Titanic lies at a depth of about 12,500 feet, about 325 nautical miles south-southeast off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
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Further reading
These independent reference works and institutions provide broader context. QuoAnno links to them for further reading; the summaries on this page are original and are not copied from those sources.
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