380. Captain Cook: History’s Greatest Explorer

The Rest Is History

Goalhanger

History

4.6 • 18.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2023

⏱️ 49 minutes

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Summary

The greatest sea explorer of all time, James Cook was born to a humble Yorkshire family, and first stood out for his talents as a cartographer for the Royal Navy in Newfoundland. He would go on to lead three epic voyages to the Pacific during the 18th century, as part of history’s first ever scientific research team, accompanied by Joseph Banks, two cats, a dog and a goat. First sent to track the transit of Venus, he would go on to encounter a new continent, Terra Australis… Join Tom and Dominic in the first part of our series on Captain Cook, as they explore the life of a man who embodied the tensions and complexity of the Enlightenment, and its relationship with the wider world. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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0:00.0	Thank you for listening to The Rest is History. For bonus episodes, early access,
0:04.4	add free listening and access to our chat community, sign up at restishistrypod.com.
0:10.7	That's restishistrypod.com.
0:24.0	Thursday 19th.
0:26.4	Into PM had fresh gales at south-southwest and cloudy squally weather,
0:31.3	with a large sullily sea. At 6, took into top sails and at 1am brought to and sounded,
0:38.0	but had no ground with 130 fathoms of line. At 5, set to top sails close reefed.
0:45.0	At 6, saw land extending from northeast to west, distance 5 or 6 leagues, having 40 fathoms,
0:53.6	fine sandy bottom. To saw the most point of land we had inside, which bore from us west,
1:00.2	a quarter south, I judged to lay in the latitude of 36 degrees, zero minutes south,
1:07.1	and into longitude of 211 degrees, seven minutes west, from Tamaridian of Greenwich.
1:14.3	I've named it Point Hicks, because left senate Hicks was to first, who discovered this land.
1:23.2	Now Tom, that's an authentic audio archive, isn't it, of Captain Cook,
1:28.4	still at Yorkshireman. I mean, he sounds a fascinating conversation list.
1:32.6	Who wouldn't want to spend three years in a cabin listening to him talk like that?
1:38.6	Yeah, so for those people who like football, he was a very like Neil Warnock,
1:43.2	the erstwhile manager of every championship team.
1:47.0	Tom, I know you don't know Neil Warnock is. I've got no idea. I was thinking more like Michael Parkinson,
1:51.5	late great, Michael Parkinson. Right, or Dickie Bird, the umpire. Dickie Bird, yes, who wears a flat
1:56.4	white leather cap. Okay, so listen, this is Captain Cook, Tom. Yeah, this is the moment when he first
2:02.8	sees Australia, it's from his journal entry on Thursday, the 19th of April, 1770. Now I was
2:08.4	tempted to say, this is the moment when Captain Cook discovered Australia. That's what I would have
	...

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