Historical Expeditions

20 September 1519–6 September 1522

Magellan–Elcano Circumnavigation

A Spanish expedition sailed west to reach the Spice Islands. After Ferdinand Magellan died in the Philippines, Juan Sebastián Elcano led Victoria across the Indian Ocean and home.

14 May 1804–23 September 1806

Lewis and Clark Expedition

The Corps of Discovery travelled from the Mississippi watershed to the Pacific and back, guided and supported by Indigenous communities along a route already known to them.

5 June 1799–3 August 1804

Humboldt and Bonpland in the Americas

Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland travelled through Spanish America, measuring environments and drawing connections between climate, elevation, species, and human activity.

9 August 1910–7 March 1912

Amundsen’s South Pole Expedition

Roald Amundsen’s Norwegian party travelled from the Bay of Whales by ski and dog sled, reaching the South Pole before returning safely.

15 June 1910–14 June 1913

Terra Nova Expedition

Robert Falcon Scott’s British Antarctic expedition combined extensive scientific work with an attempt on the South Pole. Scott’s polar party reached the Pole and died during the return.

19 May 1845–22 April 1848

Franklin’s Lost Expedition

John Franklin’s two-ship expedition entered the Canadian Arctic in search of a Northwest Passage. Both ships were trapped in ice and all 129 remaining crew members died.

21 December 1872–May 1876

HMS Challenger Expedition

A converted naval vessel crossed the world’s oceans with laboratories, scientists, and new instruments for sounding, sampling, and observing the deep sea.

24 June 1893–9 September 1896

Nansen’s Fram Expedition

Fridtjof Nansen deliberately froze Fram into Arctic pack ice to test whether a transpolar current could carry a ship across the Arctic Ocean.

August 1914–30 August 1916

Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition

Ernest Shackleton’s planned crossing of Antarctica ended before landfall when Endurance was trapped and crushed. The expedition became a prolonged survival and rescue journey.

1 June 1937–2 July 1937

Earhart’s 1937 World Flight

Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan flew an equatorial route around most of the world before disappearing between Lae and Howland Island.

28 April 1947–7 August 1947

Kon-Tiki Expedition

Thor Heyerdahl and five companions crossed the eastern Pacific on a balsa raft from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands.

March 1953–June 1953

1953 British Mount Everest Expedition

A large British-led team established a chain of camps through the Khumbu Icefall and South Col. Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reached the summit and returned safely.

27 December 1831–2 October 1836

HMS Beagle sailed on a five-year Royal Navy surveying voyage under Robert FitzRoy. Charles Darwin travelled as a self-funded naturalist, spending long periods ashore collecting specimens and recording the geology, plants, animals, and societies he encountered.

July 1405–October 1407

Zheng He’s First Treasure Voyage

Commissioned by the Yongle emperor, a large Ming fleet under Zheng He sailed through established South and Southeast Asian maritime networks to Calicut, exchanging envoys and gifts, conducting trade, and asserting imperial authority before returning to China.

1271–1295

Marco Polo’s Journey to Asia

Marco Polo travelled with his father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo from Venice through the eastern Mediterranean, Iran, Central Asia, and the Mongol-ruled Silk Road networks to Kublai Khan’s court. Years later, the Polos accompanied Kököchin’s maritime escort from China toward Persia and continued home to Venice.

14 June 1325–1354

Ibn Battuta’s Travels

The Moroccan jurist Ibn Battuta left Tangier for the pilgrimage to Mecca and continued through interconnected scholarly, courtly, pilgrimage, and commercial networks across Africa and Eurasia. His journeys took him through the Middle East, East Africa, Central and South Asia, the Maldives, Southeast Asia, and China before later travels in al-Andalus and the Mali Empire.

26 August 1768–12 July 1771

James Cook’s First Voyage

Lieutenant James Cook commanded HMS Endeavour on a joint Royal Navy and Royal Society voyage to observe the 1769 transit of Venus at Tahiti. Under further Admiralty orders, the expedition then circumnavigated and charted New Zealand, followed the eastern coast of Australia, and returned to England through Batavia and the Cape of Good Hope.

3 August 1492–15 March 1493

Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage

Christopher Columbus led a Castilian-sponsored fleet west from Palos de la Frontera seeking a maritime route to Asia. It did not reach Asia. The expedition crossed from the Canary Islands to Guanahani in the Bahamas, explored parts of Cuba and Hispaniola, established La Navidad after the loss of Santa María, and returned to Spain by way of the Azores and Lisbon. The Caribbean lands it entered were already inhabited by diverse Indigenous peoples, including Lucayan and Taíno communities.

139 BCE–126 BCE

Zhang Qian’s Mission to the Western Regions

Sent by Emperor Wu of Han to seek an alliance with the Yuezhi, Zhang Qian travelled west from Chang’an, survived long captivity by the Xiongnu, reached Central Asia, and returned with new information about lands and exchange networks beyond Han territory.

1733–1743

Great Northern Expedition

The Russian Empire’s vast 1733 to 1743 expedition surveyed Siberia and the Arctic while Bering and Chirikov’s Pacific detachment sailed from Kamchatka toward North America.

399–412

Faxian’s Pilgrimage

The Chinese Buddhist monk Faxian travelled overland through Central Asia into northern India in search of authoritative monastic texts, studied at major Buddhist centres, and returned to China by merchant ships through Sri Lanka and Java.

629–645

Xuanzang’s Journey to India

The monk and scholar Xuanzang left Tang China for Central and South Asia, crossed the Tian Shan and Hindu Kush, studied for years at Nalanda and other Buddhist centres, and returned with manuscripts that transformed Buddhist scholarship in East Asia.

1000–1021

Norse Voyages to Vinland

Around the year 1000, Norse seafarers travelled from Greenland to lands west of the Labrador Sea. The Icelandic sagas associate several voyages with Leif Erikson, Thorfinn Karlsefni, and Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, while archaeology securely demonstrates a Norse presence at L’Anse aux Meadows.

History’s great expeditions