This guy here with another episode of the History and Plug podcast.

Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan are known for their discoveries, but it was Captain

James Cook, who made global travel truly possible.

Cook was an 18th century British explorer who mapped vast regions of the Pacific, including

New Zealand and Australia's

eastern coast, along with much of Polynesia, up to Hawaii, and he meticulously conducted

soundings to measure ocean depths and created highly detailed maps, which gave explorers and

sailors navigational charts that were in heavy use for generations. His three voyages, from

1768 to 1779, also advanced scientific knowledge through

detailed observations of astronomy, natural history, and indigenous cultures. For example, making

observations that Polynesian languages were very similar, and he bowed forward the accurate

theory that they had migrated through these islands on ship, and all this earned him enduring

recognition as one of history's

greatest navigators. Pacific Islanders literally worshipped him in 1779 when he sailed into a volcanic

bay, known by Hawaiians as the Pathway of the Gods. Cookahel thousands of people seemingly

waiting for him on shore. Once it came on land, people prostrated themselves and chanted

Lono, the name of a Hawaiian deity.

Today's guest is Hampton Sides, author of the Wide Wide Sea, Imperial Ambition, First Contact,

and the fateful final voyage of Captain James Cook. We take a look at Cook's third and final voyage, detailing his exploration of the Pacific, encounters with indigenous cultures, and his

tragic death and white. We see that he was a brilliant,

complex navigator, but he was also losing his grip at the end of his life while he was dealing

with the incredible moral and cultural challenges, going to alien cultures on the far side of the

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