–First European captain to visit the Hawaiian Islands.
Captain James Cook (1728–1779) was a legendary British explorer, navigator, and cartographer. As a seaman in the Royal Navy in his youth, Cook charted the St. Lawrence Seaway environs, as well as the Quebec and Newfoundland areas in Canada.
Twelve years of Cook’s explorations of the Pacific Ocean environs (1768–1779 CE) significantly advanced Western knowledge. Cook’s explorations and cartography spanned, among other destinations, Australia, New Zealand, the Great Barrier Reef, Friendly Islands, Easter Islands, Norfolk Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, as well as the aforementioned Hawaiian Islands.
He then traversed the Antarctic Circle, the Alaskan coast, the western Canadian coast, the putative Northwest Passage, the California coast, and the Bering Strait. (Please allow for some zig–zagging.) Cook, over his legendary three major voyages, was a man on the move.