Amazing Forgotten Explorers
Sometimes it's not enough to be the first, to go the farthest, or even to chart the uncharted. Historical memory can be a fickle mistress, which is why we've decided to right historical injustice and celebrate the oft-overlooked pioneers of exploration.
Alexander Gordon Laing 1793-1826
For late 18th- and early 19th-century Europeans, Timbuktu was the El Dorado of Africa. But there's a reason the word "Timbuktu" is still synonymous with remote isolation, because even if Alexander Laing could have accessed Google Maps it wouldn't have done him any good. With only a vague idea of where he was heading, the British army officer and his tiny retinue left Tripoli in July 1825. Laing's local guide promised the plucky Scotsman the journey would take only a few weeks, but the caravan spent 13 months wandering the desert, avoiding warring nomads, and fighting its own war with thirst and hunger. The worst of Laing's ordeal came 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) and nearly a year into his journey, when his guide betrayed him to bandits. Laing survived and recounted the event like a minor inconvenience akin to burnt chips in a letter to his father- in-law. After detailing multiple cuts and fractures all over his face, head, and neck, he concludes: "I am nevertheless, as already I have said, doing well." Laing stumbled into Timbuktu a couple months afterward. He and his journal disappeared, but his subsequent murder was confirmed in 1828 by the second European explorer to reach the city.
Auguste Piccard 1884-1962
The Swiss scientist began his career as a physicist working with Albert Einstein and may have looked more science-y than any other man in history. But the two brilliant scientists' paths diverged as Piccard became fascinated with the study of cosmic rays. Of course, the Earth's atmosphere interfered with Piccard's study of said rays. His solution? Leave the atmosphere. To accomplish this and further his research, Piccard built a balloon complete with an attached pressurized chamber. And over the course of more than two-dozen balloon flights, Piccard reached altitudes ranging from 15,000 to 23,000 meters (50,000 to 75,000 ft)- higher than any man before him.
Zhang Qian 200-114 B.C.
In the second century B.C., the Chinese weren't too sure of what lay west of them. So the Han government commissioned its envoy, Zhang Qian, to locate Central Asian kingdoms and open up new markets for Chinese exports.Qian made it as far as Bactria (Afghanistan) where he encountered the remnants of a fascinating culture that had been forced south into India by nomads. The Greco-Bactrians were Hellenic colonists who settled in the area following Alexander the Great's conquests. They brought grapevine cultivation, European horses, and traditionally proficient artists to the area-which Qian reported to the Han court. But Qian wasn't done yet. Despite the occasional kidnappings by Xiognu nomads, Qian continued to crisscross the Central Asian steppe and frequently saw Chinese goods, like silk, command outrageous prices. Qian forged trade agreements with countless peoples as he traveled. And within about a decade of Qian's death, Chinese traders were regularly traveling between the continents to exchange goods along routes similar to Qian's. Those routes formed one of history's greatest networks of commercial exchange, the Silk Road.
Pytheas 4th Century B.C.
A Greek sailor, Pytheas, discovered-at least from a Mediterranean perspective-the British Isles. Pytheas circumnavigated Britain at a time when most Greco-Roman minds imagined little existed beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) other than an endless ocean.Before Pytheas could even begin his exploration in earnest, the Greek geographer had to navigate the Carthaginian blockade at modern-day Gibraltar. Apparently, Pytheas managed to avoid Carthage's warships and sight Britain, Scotland, and Ireland.But the most incredible part of Pytheas' expedition came when he found a land he called Thule. Lying one week's sail north of Britain, Thule, as described by Pytheas, was a place where oceans "congealed" and days lasted only a few hours. While his findings sounded laughable to ancient scholars, Pytheas' voyage probably traced part of Norway's Atlantic coast and likely took the Greek ship into the Arctic circle (the "congealing oceans" obviously being ice), making Pytheas history's first polar explorer.
Even More Auguste Piccard 1884-1962
Auguste Piccard was no one-hit wonder, hence his place here twice. We just couldn't keep him off the list with all the records he's broken. Being the first man to enter the stratosphere was only the beginning for him. After World War II ended and funding to match his ambition became available, Piccard pursued his next dream-deep-sea exploration. Piccard invented a steel-hulled submersible he dubbed a "bathyscaphe." Piccard's third bathyscaphe, The Trieste, resembled his high-altitude balloon design in reverse. The Trieste's cabin was built to withstand pressures exceeding 16,000 lbs per square inch-more than enough to flatten the average submarine. With US backing, Piccard's son, Jacques and Don Walsh, a US naval officer, piloted The Trieste to the deepest point on the Earth's surface, the floor of the Mariana Trench. This achievement was not duplicated for half of a century.
Ibn Battuta 1304-1368
Ibn Battuta, a son of middle-class Moroccan parents, was all set to become a lawyer and lead a traditional life. Then a pilgrimage to Mecca intervened. Once Battuta got there though, he pulled a Forrest Gump and kept running-or in this case, riding his horse. After reaching Mecca, Battuta continued on to Persia and then back to Baghdad. Ibn Battuta then determined that he would go as far as possible as often as possible while "never traveling the same route twice." For the next three decades, Ibn Battuta kept to his motto almost continuously and covered 120,000 kilometers (75,000 mi), a feat unequaled for centuries. Actually tracing all of the traveller's routes means grabbing a map of Europe, Africa, and Asia, then marking it with enough ragged pen lines to begin rendering it incomprehensible. For most of his travels, Battuta traveled within the Muslim world. His insider status allowed him privileged access to and observation of the customs of far-flung peoples, which he recounted (not always entirely accurately) in The Travels of Ibn Battuta.
Hanno The Navigator 6th Century B.C.
To be fair, Hanno has not been completely forgotten; the Carthaginian sea- captain and original "Navigator" is the titular inspiration for a 2008 song. Long before Pytheas journeyed through the Pillars of Hercules and north, Hanno made his way south along the West African coast. Whereas several explorers are notable