In our age of satellite imagery and airplanes, exploring new places is much easier than hundreds of years ago, when many expeditions went there, about which they had very vague ideas.
With nothing at hand but supplies, a journal for notes and some primitive navigational instruments, these people spent many months or even years on expeditions.
Each such trip was risky and life-threatening, and many have sunk into oblivion, leaving not even the slightest clue about what happened to them).
10. Journey of Prince Madoc
Several centuries before Columbus, Prince Madoc set out from Wales to the shores of the then not yet officially opened America. It was a great voyage with nine ships and its goal was to discover new lands in the west.
Prince Madoc was the son of King Owain ap Gruffudd, ruler of the Welsh kingdom of Gwynedd, who had 18 sons in total (!). True, some of them were illegitimate and Madoc was one of those. When the king died in 1169, feuds arose between the older brothers over the right to inherit the throne, and Madoc did not want to get into all this, being a peace-loving person. Instead of quarreling with his brothers, he gathered ships and travel to the west.
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The story of Madoc was recorded in Welsh manuscripts, but much of his journey remained unclear. Some historians believe that he still reached America and landed on the coast of Alabama. In particular, there are remains of stone walls and they were probably built in the pre-Columbian era. Local Indians, however, did not build something like that, and according to their legends, these walls were erected by "white people".
But where did Madoc go and everyone who sailed to America with him on nine ships? How could such a number of people dissolve into nothingness? According to some versions, Madoc, being a very tolerant person, simply made friends with the local Indians and put the Welsh genes into their gene pool. This version is allegedly confirmed by the similarity of some words from the Welsh language and the language of the local Mandan tribe. Also, the traditional rounded Mandan boat is very similar to similar Welsh boats.
And there are also legends that in 1799 burials with six skeletons were found in these places, on which there were decorations with the ancient Welsh coat of arms.
9. Vivaldi's expedition
It is a well-known fact that Columbus actually wanted to sail to India and did not seek undiscovered land. Two centuries before Columbus's trip, two brothers from Genoa named Vivaldi - Vandino and Ugolino, also decided to go to India in a new way, namely along the Atlantic Ocean along the coast of Africa.
They carefully prepared for the journey and stored food for 10 years on the ships. In the middle of 1291 they passed through Gibraltar and were never met again.
There were several attempts to find out the fate of the brothers, in particular in 1312 Lanzerotto Maloccello looked for their traces in the Canary Islands, but did not find it. In those same years, the son of Ugolino started looking for his father and uncle. He reached Magadishu, but he also did not find out anything, no one saw the Italians' ship. Then he decided to go to India and find out everything there, but in India he was killed.
Sudden news about the fate of the brothers came to light only in 1455, when explorer Antoniotto Uso Di Mare said that he had met a descendant of one of the members of the Vivaldi expedition. According to him, the brothers and their team were captured in the mythical Kingdom of Presbyter John (in central Asia) and lived in slavery for the rest of their lives.
8. Expedition of Abubakar
Abu Bakr II (Abubakar II) was the ruler of Mali in the 14th century. and once he thought about the fact that the ocean cannot be endless and somewhere it ends. To find out exactly where, he equipped a huge expedition of 200 ships, rewarded them with food, water and gold and sent them to sail to the ends of the world.
Only one ship returned. According to the sailors, in the middle of the ocean, they saw a huge roaring waterfall that looked like the end of the earth. No sooner had they examined it than ships began to suck into this waterfall. Only one managed to get out of there.
Abubakar refused to believe in such a thing and this time sent 3 thousand ships (!) Headed by himself, leaving his son and his regent in the country. Not a single ship has returned.
Some historians believe that the ships of Abubakar reached the shores of America and the crew mixed with the Indians, for some reason refusing to return to Mali. This version is supported by the legend of local Indians that long before the Spaniards, black people sailed to them, who had weapons decorated with gold. Archaeologists, however, have not found any artifacts to support this.
7. Cabot's expedition
John Cabot is now known as the first European since the Viking Age to discover North America. Cabot's ships landed in Newfoundland in June 1497, after which the crew landed, planted the papal flag there and then returned to the ships. then to swim along the coast and inspect everything. Then they returned to England and Cabot was hailed as a hero.
What happened to him then remains a mystery to this day. It is known that he assembled a second expedition to the New World of five ships and in May 1498 they left the port of Bristol. Two months later, word came from the Spanish envoy that Cabot's ships were caught in a storm and therefore one ship remained in Ireland, but the rest sailed on.
However, what happened to them and where Cabot went, has since been covered with the fog of times. There is information that in 1501 one of Cabot's crew members was discovered in London, who sailed with him after a storm to the New World, but what stories he told and whether he told anything at all is unknown.
6. The Missing Franklin Expedition
This expedition will be remembered by everyone who watched the recent TV series "Terror". In 1845, British explorer John Franklin went with a team in two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, to search for part of the Northwest Passage. Their dire fate was not fully known until 2014, despite three expeditions in search of them.
The expeditions managed to find out from the Inuit that the ships were stuck in the ice and could no longer move. Franklin himself died in 1847, the rest of the crew left the ships and spent the winter on King William Island, after which they decided to go back on foot, trying to get to civilization. But on the way they ran wild, hunger tormented them, the canned food was spoiled and as a result they could not resist cannibalism.
In 2014, the remains of the "Terror" were found, which confirmed the correctness of the words of the Inuit. The ship was in excellent condition and was not damaged when people left it.
5. Travel of Evdoks Kiziksky
Even before the time of the Roman Empire, the ancient Greeks traded with India. In 118 BC, an Indian sailor was wrecked in the Red Sea, was rescued and taken to King Ptolemy in Egypt. With the help of the Greek sailor Eudoxus of Cyzikos, the first recorded sailing route from the coast of Egypt to India was made from his information.
Two years later, Eudoxus made his first independent trip to India without even using the Indian's records. For the next several decades, it was one of the most important trade routes for Greece. However, during his second voyage, his ship skidded to the shores of Africa, and then he thought, what if we sail further south.
His first journey ended unsuccessfully. He barely sailed to Mauritania, where he sold the ship, and then fled to Spain. There he equipped a new expedition, but after the second voyage Eudoxus disappeared somewhere without a trace. This was the first attempt by people to go around Africa, the second such will be done only a thousand years later.
4. Peter Tessem and Paul Knudsen
In 1919, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was traveling along the northern coast of Russia when one of his team members, Peter Tessem, fell ill and began to suffer from severe headaches. As a result, he was left at Cape Chelyuskin with his friend Paul Knudsen.
Roald was confident that both would be able to reach Dixon. There was a month's journey before him, but along the way, caches with supplies, which Knudsen knew about, were left, so that starvation would not threaten both of them. However, by 1920, none of these two reached Dixon.
The Norwegian government organized a search party, but they found no one. Soviet Russia also launched its own search in 1921 and they managed to find a Norwegian sleigh and a letter stating that everything was fine with them. But then their traces were lost.
Only in 1922 was one body found, which, judging by the engraved watch, belonged to Tessem. The body lay not far from Dixon and why this man did not reach the village itself and what became of his partner remained unknown.
3. The brothers Corte-Real
In 1500, King Manuel of Portugal sent the navigator Gaspar Corte Real on an expedition to find the Northwest Passage in Asia. North America was still unknown in those years, and when Gaspar sailed to Greenland, he mistook it for Asia.
He did not go ashore, but returned home to take his brother Miguel and two more ships with him on a new expedition. But this time on their way to Greenland there were floating icebergs, because of which they turned south and suddenly found themselves on an unknown island, which was Newfoundland.
There they captured 57 local Indians in order to sell them into slavery and Gaspar sent them together with Miguel to Portugal on two ships, while he sailed further south and disappeared there. A year later, Miguel sailed to Newfoundland and, not finding his brother, began looking for him, after which he himself disappeared.
All these failures, however, interested the Portuguese authorities in new lands and they sailed a lot in the Newfoundland area and beyond, before they were squeezed out of there by the British and French.
2. George Bass
George Bass was a talented surgeon and navigator on the ship Reliance, who played an important role in describing the coast of Australia. Between 1795 and 1789, he studied Australian flora and fauna, discovered coal deposits in Sydney Harbor, and confirmed a strait between New South Wales and Tasmania, later named after him.
But despite all the honors and awards, Bass did not want to enjoy fame, but thirsted for adventure, and in 1803 he sailed from Australia to South America. Judging by his letters, he intended to engage in illegal trade there. In February 1803, he left the shores of Australia and no one else saw him and his ship.
In those years, there were difficult relations between England and Spain and there were suggestions that the Spaniards captured him, but no records of him were found anywhere. And later, when Spain freed all British prisoners, Bass was not among them either. His fate is still unknown to anyone.
1. "Sea gull"
In 1839, the US Navy acquired a ship called the Sea Gull. Along with the ship "Flying Fish", he was to play an important role in the expedition to explore the routes of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. However, when the expedition passed Cape Horn off the southern tip of America, gusty winds and snow forced the ships to settle for several months and wait out the bad weather.
In April 1840, the expedition continued on its way, leaving the "Sea Gull" and "Flying Fish" at the cape, these ships were to catch up with them later, as they awaited the delivery of food.
On the night of April 28, both ships sailed from their port, but the winds again became so strong that both ships could not sail further and decided to return back to port. Ahead sailed "Flying Fish", and behind it "Sea Gull" and suddenly something happened and "Seagull" disappeared without a trace. In the end, only the "Flying Fish" sailed to the port.
What happened to the "Seagull" the Americans still do not know, Sudden shipwreck? But then there would be debris. Did she go further because there was a riot on the ship and someone overthrew the captain? It is also doubtful.