James Cook

1728 – 1779

Captain James Cook was a British Royal Navy officer and cartographer who led three voyages of exploration to the Pacific between 1768 and 1779, charting the coasts of New Zealand, eastern Australia, and the Hawaiian Islands and laying the formal British claims that would underwrite a century of subsequent colonization. The diseases his crews introduced and the violence his expeditions provoked devastated Indigenous populations across the Pacific. He was killed in February 1779 at Kealakekua Bay in Hawaiʻi by a Native Hawaiian crowd after he attempted to take Hawaiian chief Kalaniʻōpuʻu hostage in retaliation for a stolen ship's boat.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM