The history of Antarctica emerges from early Western theories of a vast continent, known as Terra Australis, believed to exist in the far south of the globe. The term Antarctic, referring to the opposite of the Arctic Circle, was coined by Marinus of Tyre in the 2nd century AD.
Gerardus Mercator was a Flemish geographer, cosmographer and cartographer. He is most renowned for creating the 1569 world map based on a new projection which represented sailing courses of constant bearing as straight lines—an innovation that is still employed in nautical charts.
Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville was a French explorer and naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica. As a botanist and cartographer, he gave his name to several seaweeds, plants and shrubs, and places such as d'Urville Island in New Zealand.
The Fraticelli or Spiritual Franciscans opposed changes to the rule of Saint Francis of Assisi, especially with regard to poverty, and regarded the wealth of the Church as scandalous, and that of individual churchmen as invalidating their status. The Fraticelli were declared heretical in 1296 by Boniface VIII.
A projected coordinate system – also called a projected coordinate reference system, planar coordinate system, or grid reference system – is a type of spatial reference system that represents locations on Earth using Cartesian coordinates (x, y) on a planar surface created by a particular map projection. Each projected coordinate system, such as "Universal Transverse Mercator WGS 84 Zone 26N," is defined by a choice of map projection (with specific parameters), a choice of geodetic datum to bind the coordinate system to real locations on the earth, an origin point, and a choice of unit of measure. Hundreds of projected coordinate systems have been specified for various purposes in various regions.
The Kensington Runestone is a slab of greywacke stone covered in runes that was discovered in Western Minnesota, United States, in 1898. Olof Ohman, a Swedish immigrant, reported that he unearthed it from a field in the largely rural township of Solem in Douglas County. It was later named after the nearest settlement, Kensington.
William of Rubruck or Guillaume de Rubrouck was a Flemish Franciscan missionary and explorer.
The Rupes Nigra, a phantom island, was believed to be a black rock located at the Magnetic North Pole or at the geographic North Pole itself. Described by Gerardus Mercator as 33 French miles in size, it provided a supposed explanation for why all compasses point to this location. The idea came from a lost work titled Inventio Fortunata, and the island featured on maps from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including those of Mercator and his successors. Mercator described the island in a 1577 letter to John Dee:
In the midst of the four countries is a Whirl-pool, into which there empty these four indrawing Seas which divide the North. And the water rushes round and descends into the Earth just as if one were pouring it through a filter funnel. It is four degrees wide on every side of the Pole, that is to say eight degrees altogether. Except that right under the Pole there lies a bare Rock in the midst of the Sea. Its circumference is almost 33 French miles, and it is all of magnetic Stone (...) This is word for word everything that I copied out of this author [Jacobus Cnoyen] years ago.
Niccolò de' Conti was a Venetian merchant, explorer, and writer. Born in Chioggia, he traveled to India and Southeast Asia, and possibly to Southern China, during the early 15th century. He was one of the sources used to create the 1450 Fra Mauro map, which indicated that there was a sea route from Europe around Africa to India.
Great Ireland, also known as White Men's Land (Hvítramannaland) or Land of the White People, and in Latin similarly as Hibernia Major and Albania, was a land said by various Norsemen to be located near Vinland. In one report, in the Saga of Eric the Red, some skrælingar captured in Markland described the people in what was supposedly White Men's Land, to have been "dressed in white garments, uttered loud cries, bore long poles, and wore fringes." Another report identifies it with the Albani people, with "hair and skin as white as snow."
Johannes Ruysch, a.k.a. Johann Ruijsch or Giovanni Ruisch was an explorer, cartographer, astronomer, manuscript illustrator and painter from the Low Countries who produced a famous map of the world: the second oldest known printed representation of the New World. This Ruysch map was published and widely distributed in 1507.
Nicholas of Lynn or Lynne, also known in Latin as Nicolas de Linna, was an English astronomer of the 14th century.
Medieval Islamic geography and cartography refer to the study of geography and cartography in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age. Muslim scholars made advances to the map-making traditions of earlier cultures, explorers and merchants learned in their travels across the Old World (Afro-Eurasia). Islamic geography had three major fields: exploration and navigation, physical geography, and cartography and mathematical geography. Islamic geography reached its apex with Muhammad al-Idrisi in the 12th century.
Astrolabe was originally a horse-transport barge converted into an exploration ship of the French Navy. Originally named Coquille, she is famous for her travels with Jules Dumont d'Urville. The name derives from an early navigational instrument, the astrolabe, a precursor to the sextant.
Farthest North describes the most northerly latitude reached by explorers, before the first successful expedition to the North Pole rendered the expression obsolete. The Arctic polar regions are much more accessible than those of the Antarctic, as continental land masses extend to high latitudes and sea voyages to the regions are relatively short.
Major explorations of Earth continued after the Age of Discovery. By the early seventeenth century, vessels were sufficiently well built and their navigators competent enough to travel to virtually anywhere on the planet by sea. In the 17th century, Dutch explorers such as Willem Jansz and Abel Tasman explored the coasts of Australia. Spanish expeditions from Peru explored the South Pacific and discovered archipelagos such as Vanuatu and the Pitcairn Islands. Luis Vaez de Torres chartered the coasts of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and discovered the strait that bears his name. European naval exploration mapped the western and northern coasts of Australia, but the east coast had to wait for over a century. Eighteenth-century British explorer James Cook mapped much of Polynesia and traveled as far north as Alaska and as far south as the Antarctic Circle. In the later 18th century, the Pacific became a focus of renewed interest, with Spanish expeditions, followed by Northern European ones, reaching the coasts of northern British Columbia and Alaska.
Arctic exploration is the physical exploration of the Arctic region of the Earth. It refers to the historical period during which mankind has explored the region north of the Arctic Circle. Historical records suggest that humankind have explored the northern extremes since 325 BC, when the ancient Greek sailor Pytheas reached a frozen sea while attempting to find a source of the metal tin. Dangerous oceans and poor weather conditions often fetter explorers attempting to reach polar regions, and journeying through these perils by sight, boat, and foot has proven difficult.
The Mercator world map of 1569 is titled Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata. The title shows that Gerardus Mercator aimed to present contemporary knowledge of the geography of the world and at the same time 'correct' the chart to be more useful to sailors. This 'correction', whereby constant bearing sailing courses on the sphere are mapped to straight lines on the plane map, characterizes the Mercator projection. While the map's geography has been superseded by modern knowledge, its projection proved to be one of the most significant advances in the history of cartography, inspiring the 19th century map historian Adolf Nordenskiöld to write "The master of Rupelmonde stands unsurpassed in the history of cartography since the time of Ptolemy." The projection heralded a new era in the evolution of navigation maps and charts and it is still their basis.
Franciscus Monachus, was born Frans Smunck in Mechelen in the Duchy of Brabant. His Latinised name, adopted when he matriculated at the University of Louvain, is translated as simply Francis the monk. Franciscus Monachus was identified as the Latinised form of his name, Frans Smunck, in his obituary notice. He is remembered as the cartographer who created the first terrestrial globe in the Low Countries.
The First Swedish–Norwegian union, was a personal union of the separate kingdoms of Sweden and Norway together with Norway's overseas colonies .The union was founded by King Magnus IV of Sweden in 1319 and dissolved in 1355, briefly re-uniting in 1362 until 1365.
