James Cook’s first voyage circumnavigated the globe in the ship Endeavour, and gave scientific members of the expedition an opportunity to collect specimens from previously unexplored habitats.

A few weeks ago, the library of Cambridge’s Trinity College (home of the recently defaced Lord Balfour portrait) exhibited four ­Australian fishing spears. They are all that remain from a collection ...

"A lot of things started going wrong from the very beginning," historian Hampton Sides says of Cook's last voyage, which ended in the British explorer's violent death on the island of Hawaii in 1779.

"A lot of things started going wrong from the very beginning," historian Hampton Sides says of Cook's last voyage, which ended in the British... 'The Wide Wide Sea' revisits Capt. James Cook's fateful ...

“The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook” by Hampton Sides, Doubleday, 432 pages, $35. Hampton Sides is one of America’s foremost ...

The end of the story is unexpected and sudden, coming about because of misunderstanding and mistake. Yet it was the right story to finish just as the new year was climbing into the sky. Now, firmly ...

In the late 1700s, a woman collected over a thousand seashells from all over the world. The collection was believed to be lost for decades, until they were saved from the garbage in the 1980s. In the ...

History is an encyclopedia filled with the names of famous explorers. Those whose adventures sometimes make us wish we lived in their time, back when what we know today as historical wonders were new ...

When HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure set sail from Plymouth, England, in 1772, the ships were stocked for a long and grueling journey into the unknown. Provisions included 60,000 tons of biscuit, ...

Bestseller Sides (On Desperate Ground) recreates in this propulsive account the final expedition of Captain James Cook (1728–1779), which culminated with his murder by native Hawaiians. Diving into ...