James Cook started life simply: the son of a poor Yorkshire farm laborer, he might have stayed unknown if he'd not gone to sea as a teenaged servant on a coal ship. With little education, he beame a naval officer and soon gained acclaim for his fine cartographic skills. His superb charts of North America earned him a promotion, his own ship (the ENDEAVOUR), and a daring voyage to Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia. There, he grounded on the Great Barrier Reef and escaped only by jettisoning gear, including the canon in the picture above. It is now in the Te Kapa museum in Wellington. During his career, Captain Cook "explored more of the earth's surface than anyone in history"; he was the first navigator to cross the Antarctic Circle and he charted vast areas of the Pacific while leading primarily scientific explorations. The latest Space Shuttle ENDEAVOUR is named in his honor, complete with the excess 'u'. Go figure.
