Victoria Falls: a white man arrived accompanied by over 200 Africans: his name was David Livingstone. Neil Oliver, The Last Explorers s1e1: David Livingstone, BBC 2019
He was here to save souls. David Livingstone was one of a small group of explorers who took the stage as the great age of exploration was drawing to a close. ibid.
Livingstone was the first European to cross the entire African continent from west to east. ibid.
The team that Livingstone had gathered together was mission impossible. ibid.
Livingstone saw an Arab slave ship plying back and forth forcing African people for hundreds of miles around to flee the slavers. ibid.
Africa stubbornly refused to be tamed … A man in the grip of an obsession. ibid.
In 1902 an expedition set out from Scotland to Antarctica in the name of Science. It was led by a man called William Speirs Bruce. In 2011 I agreed to retrace Bruce’s journey to Antarctica, following in the footsteps of a scientific explorer and photographer who has become all but lost to history. Neil Oliver, The Last Explorers s1e2: William Speirs Bruce
After Ben Nevis he continued his cold-weather training with expeditions to the Arctic. He toured the country giving illustrated lectures that brought the polar regions to the public for the very first time. ibid.
Bruce documented it all making a remarkable collection of images. ibid.
A little more than 150 years ago a young man arrived here in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada in California … He was an explorer … And one day he would be remembered with more reverence than most of America’s presidents. Neil Oliver, The Last Explorers s1e3: John Muir, BBC 2019
Muir began his journey in Indianapolis … down through Florida … He would go to California instead to visit Yosemite. ibid.
Muir was drunk on the sheer spectacle. ibid.
‘He took risks, terrible risks, and he got away with it … The mountains were his teacher … He saw that human beings were a part of it.’ ibid. historian
Muir was offering his readers a new understanding of nature, preaching a new America. ibid.
Proposed a national park surrounding the valley … At the end of September Congress passed a bill. ibid.
Thanks to Muir, preservation was now an established and accepted idea. ibid.
At little more than 150 years ago Japan was medieval. A land of feudal villages and knights in armour. But then on a single day on 1st January 1873 Japan declared its desire to modernize, to synchronize with the west … The architect of that revolution was a unique intrepid businessman – he was part buccaneer and part explorer – he was a Scot and his name was Thomas Blake Glover … he was a pioneer: only a handful of foreigners had ever seen Japan. Neil Oliver: The Last Explorers s1e4: Thomas Blake Glover
He had been living in Nagasaki for three years. He was only 24. ibid.
Traders like Glover felt they could do business with whomever they pleased. ibid.
Fathered many illegitimate children. ibid.
He switched from trading tea to the more profitable enterprise of running guns. ibid.
It [Fortnum & Mason] had a dedicated department for expeditions. Inside Fortnum & Mason: The Queens’ Grocer, Channel 5 2019
Extraordinary, iconic, lethal: these incredible ships have told our story for the past four-hundred years. And define what it means to be part of our island’s nation. Rob Bell, Great British Ships s2e1: Endeavour, Channel 5 2019
I discover the amazing story of HMV Endeavour: a humble coal-bark from Yorkshire that transformed our understanding of the world. With her famous captain James Cook, she sailed to the edge of the world to reveal a world of mystery and wonder. ibid.
James Cook was the son of a farm labourer from Yorkshire … He joined the Royal Navy and he rose quickly through its ranks. ibid.
Cook was to continue deep into the uncharted south Pacific to look for a fabled land they called Terra Australis Incognita. ibid.
The Royal Research Ship Discovery: she set sail on a voyage to the last uncharted continent on the planet: Antarctica. A journey that would attract the world’s most famous explorers. Discovery was the first ever purpose built scientific vessel, and she ignited a global passion for exploration. Rob Bell, Great British Ships s2e3: Scott & Shackleton
A ship conceived for one mission: an expedition that would capture the imagination of the world: a journey to the uncharted South Pole. ibid.
I’m here in Israel in search of the Knights Templar. These guys were the stuff of legend. So is their gold. During the Crusades these warrior monks battled for God, gold and glory. Somewhere here in the modern city of Acre lies their command centre and possibly their treasure. Lost Cities with Albert Linn s1e1: Knights Templar, National Geographic 2019
This is the new golden age of exploration. ibid.
Security was provided by a powerful band of devout but deadly monks – the Knights Templar. ibid.
All across the Holy Land archaeologists have dug up coins concealed within 53 Crusader strongholds. ibid.
Somewhere hidden just beneath the surface of this lagoon is the echoes of this ancient Templar fortress. ibid.
The jungles of Colombia, South America, this is where the legend of El Dorado was born … deep in the jungle, high in the mountains … Somewhere out there is a lost city waiting to be found. Lost Cities with Albert Linn s1e2: El Dorado
‘There really is something intrinsic in humans to want to explore.’ Secrets of the Solar System s1e8: Pluto & the Outer Planets, Joel Park, co-investigator of New Horizons, BBC 2020
It is perhaps one of the most famous expeditions of the twentieth century: Ernest Shackleton’s disastrous mission to cross Antarctica. When Shackleton’s Ship Endurance got snared in polar ice, the mission became an all-out fight for survival. The ship disappeared beneath the ice … What happened to Shackleton’s lost ship? Can we find it? History’s Greatest Mysteries with Laurence Fishburne s1e2: Endurance – The Hunt for Shackleton’s Ice Ship, History 2020
An expedition is heading into the frozen waters of the Antarctic. ibid.
Antarctica: the most extreme place on Earth. Temperatures reach 100 below. Wind whips across it at 200 miles per hour. This frozen continent surrounds the South Pole. It’s a vast land entirely covered in ice. Somewhere in these frozen seas lies the holy grail of shipwrecks: The Endurance. ibid.
Down here the water is so cold the wooden ship is likely to be perfectly preserved. ibid.
Flying in from across the globe is an international team of ship hunters, explorers and scientists. Two years in the planning and over $250m of cutting-edge technology. ibid.
‘The wind’s unrelenting. And the snow driven like needles into your face.’ ibid. Conrad Anker, explorer
The Endurance is completely stuck [Weddell Sea]. But she’s 550 miles from where she will finally sink. ibid.
Though the crew was trapped, they had reason to believe they would escape. ibid.
In Kensington, Minnesota, 1898 a Swedish immigrant Olof Ohman found a stone with runic inscription. Now this rune stone came to be known as the Kensington Rune Stone, and it became one of the most controversial artefacts in history. The year 1362 is carved on the rune stone along with an inscription of a Viking journey, suggesting that Europeans were here way before Christopher Columbus. But scholars have declared it a hoax. Secrets of the Viking Stone I: Rocks Don’t Lie, Sky Peter Stormare reporting, History 2021
So what does it say? … 8 Goths and 22 Norwegians upon a journey of discovery from Vinland westwards. We had camp by two skerries one day’s journey north from this stone … 1362. Secrets of the Viking Stone II: Skeletons in the Closet
The inscription on the stones speaks of a massacre of ten men, one day’s journey north, which could be where those skeletons were found in the Ashby gravel pit. ibid.
Vinland, west of Greenland, Helga and Ann Ingstad in 1960 a Norwegian couple … used these sagas to navigate around Newfoundland and they eventually found a Viking settlement that was dated to the year around 1,000. This changed everything. ibid.
The Vikings went almost everywhere in Europe … They settled on whatever islands they could find in the north Atlantic. Secrets of the Viking Stone III: Viking Confidential, historian
The fur trade was exactly what would have brought a group of Norsemen to Kensington, Minnesota, in 1362. ibid.