27 October: Captain James Cook

Born on this date in 1728: Captain James Cook, known for discovering Australia. 10 things you might not know about him.

1. His family were farmers, so his first job was working on a farm in Yorkshire. He also worked in a grocery store. The cottage where his parents lived was moved, brick by brick, to Melbourne, Australia, in 1934, where it was rebuilt and still stands today.
2. He knew he wanted to be a sailor, however, and joined the merchant navy at 17. He did well there and by the time he was 26, was being groomed to become a captain. He made the surprising decision to give all that up and join the Navy as a common seaman. The Navy soon spotted his talent, too, and within two years he'd risen through the ranks and been promoted to ship's master.
3. He was a very talented cartographer. His maps of the Saint Lawrence River helped the British a great deal when they launched a surprise attack on Quebec during the Seven Years War. It was this talent which helped him win the command of his own ship in the early 1760s, tasked with charting Newfoundland. His map of Newfoundland was so accurate it is still usable today. It was also a factor in winning him the round the world exploring gig, as his superiors knew he could navigate uncharted waters, and that once he'd been there, they wouldn't be uncharted any more, because he'd bring home new maps. His reputation as an exploer and mapmaker even brought the respect of Britain's enemies at the time, Spain and the USA. Spanish vessels once detained his fleet only to let them go when they found out who the captain was; and US vessles were instructed by Benjamin Franklin to treat Cook and his crews as "common friends to mankind" should they encounter them.
4. He was innovative when it came to the health of his crew. He insisted they bathed every day and he'd also worked out that fresh fruit and veg were vital in preventing scurvy, so he made sure he stocked up with fresh produce at every stop. For longer stints at sea, he took along supplies of sauerkraut, pickled Cabbage. He persuaded the men to eat it by making sure it was on his own table daily, so they'd think it was a desirable delicacy.
5. His first journey to the southern hemisphere was undertaken with the purpose of observing the planet Venus as it travelled between the Earth and the sun. He stopped off at Tahiti to do this, and his observations would help astronomers calculate the distance between the Earth and the sun. While he was down there, he hoped to discover the fabled southern continent. He visited New Zealand, and worked out that it was a pair of islands, not the fabled continent, but got into a fight with a Maori tribe. He did stop off in Australia for a couple of months after discovering the Great Barrier Reef, which damaged his ship. A lot of his men caught malaria and died while the repairs were being done.
6. His second expedition was with the purpose of finding the southern continent or proving there was no such thing. Little did he know he'd already been there! This trip took him further south than any other European had ever been.
7. On his first visit to Hawaii, the natives there mistook him for a god. He just happened to arrive there during a festival to honour a Hawaiian fertility god, and since the natives had never seen white men before, or anything like their ships, they came to the conclusion Cook was a deity. Cook took full advantage of this and glady accepted the gifts they showered him with, but they realised their mistake when one of Cook's men died. Relations with the Hawaiians were strained after that.
8. In fact, Cook was eventually killed by Hawaiians after a row over a stolen boat escalated. Cook was eventually stabbed by a Hawaiian warrior with a knife Cook had given them, and bashed to death with rocks. Even so, the burial they gave him was one that befitted their own kings. There is a monument to him in Hawaii commemorating his landing there and his death. The land around it is still technically part of the UK.
9. Two of NASA's Space Shuttles were named after Cook's ships, the Endeavour and the Discovery. Discovery carried a medallion in honour of Cook on its final voyage in 2011.
10. The Cook Islands in the South Pacific are named after him. So is Mount Cook, the highest peak in New Zealand. There's also a Cook crater on the Moon.

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