Even by the 1830s, central Australia was still a great mystery. Several people had tried to explore the interior but had been defeated by desert, lack of water and hostile natives. One of these was Edward Eyre, who had failed twice. His third attempt also seemed hopeless but finally, after an appalling journey of 2,000 km, Eyre and Wylie, his …

In 1803 the United States purchased from France a huge area known as Louisiana which gave the U.S. twice as much territory as it had previously owned. Much of it was unexplored, however, and President Jefferson ordered Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark to explore this ‘wild’ western area as thoroughly as possible. They set off up the Missouri …

In December 1831, HMS Beagle was sent by the British Government on a surveying expedition. Attached to this mission as naturalist was a young man, Charles Darwin. Born in Shrewsbury in 1809, he had disappointed his father by refusing to become a doctor or a clergyman. It was feared he would be a failure in life but he became interested …

With the discovery of the New World, Spain and Portugal became great rivals. Before this rivalry led to war, Pope Alexander VI divided the world, in 1494, into two parts by drawing a line from the south of Greenland to the mouth of the Amazon. All lands to the west of this line belonged to Spain, all to the east …

The first French explorer in the New World was Jacques Cartier. On 20 April 1534 he sailed westwards with two ships, seeking a short route to the Indies. Having reached Newfoundland, he waited until the winter ice had cleared, and then sailed through a strait and explored a great bay, claiming the territory in the name of France. On a …

Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (born 7 August 1925) is an Indian agricultural scientist. He currently serves as a Member of Parliament from Rajya Sabha and is also member of the National Advisory Council. Swaminathan is known as the “Father of the Green Revolution in India”, for his leadership and success in introducing and further developing high-yielding varieties of wheat in India. …

Morari Bapu, real name Moraridas Prabhudas Hariyani born on September 25, 1946 in Talgajarda is a popular Hindu kathakaar (preacher), who has been giving 9 day-long sermons (kathaas) in both Gujarati and Hindi all over the world—including in India, the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea, and on an …

For thousands of years the world had speculated about the origin of the River Nile, but it was not until Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke, two experienced explorers, led an expedition to Africa in 1857 that a real attempt was made to solve the problem. The entire journey was complicated from the start by the fact that neither of …

One of the many who went on a vain search for El Dorado was a Spaniard, Hernando de Soto. He set off with a few mounted companions from Florida in 1539 on a journey that was to last for three years. De Soto and his party pushed their way through unexplored territory and in 1541 came to the banks of …

John Cabot was an Italian and a native of Venice. When he sailed westwards in the little Matthew, in 1497, however, he flew the banner of St George at his masthead, for he had been sent on a voyage of discovery by England’s King Henry VII. After a crossing of six weeks, land was sighted. Cabot went ashore to claim …