Top 10 ge­o­graph­ic dis­cov­er­ies facts

Columbus. Santa Maria, the largest of three ships of Columbus' first voyage, was a small Carrack with single deck and a crew of 40 men.

In the Bahamas. It is known that Columbus arrived on an island in the Bahamas (he named it San Salvador), but for centuries historians debated on which island that really was. The captain's log doesn't give much information: large, beautiful island, with a lagoon. Today, there is a general consensus that it was an island in the Bahamas, named San Salvador in 1926 to match the name given by Columbus.

Vasco de Balboa. Spanish explorer Balboa was the first European to sight the Pacific from America in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and reached a new ocean. He named it Mar del Sur (literally, "South Sea") because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan called the ocean Pacífico (or "Pacific" meaning, "peaceful") because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters.

None. Magellan's expedition of 1519–1522 became the first expedition to circumnavigate the Earth. But Magellan himself did not complete the entire voyage, being killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines.

The Dutch. New Zealand was discovered by Dutch captain Abel Tasman. It is named after the Dutch province of Zealand (near the Belgian border today).

Tasmania. Van Diemen’s Land, (1642–1855), the southeastern Australian island colony that became the commonwealth state of Tasmania. After being a part of the colony of New South Wales since 1803, Van Diemen’s Land became a separate colony in 1825. It achieved self-governing status in 1855–56. Associated with that development was the long-foreshadowed name change to Tasmania. Since then, “Van Diemen’s Land” has generally evoked the brutalities of convict transportation and ethnic conflict (see Black War).

A sea. There is a State of Colombia. The capital of Sri Lanka is Colombo. Columbia University is one of the best universities in the USA. But there is no Columbus sea.

Francis Drake. Golden Hind was an English galleon best known for her privateering circumnavigation of the globe between 1577 and 1580, captained by Sir Francis Drake. She was originally known as Pelican, but was renamed by Drake mid-voyage in 1578, in honour of his patron, Sir Christopher Hatton, whose crest was a golden 'hind' (a female red deer).

The Endeavour. HMS Endeavour was a British Royal Navy research vessel that Lieutenant James Cook commanded on his first voyage of discovery, to Australia and New Zealand, from 1769 to 1771. In April 1770, Endeavour became the first ship to reach the east coast of Australia, when Cook went ashore at what is now known as Botany Bay. Endeavour then sailed north along the Australian coast.

From Italy. John Cabot (Italian: Giovanni Caboto, Venetian: Zuan Chabotto) was a Venetian navigator and explorer whose 1497 discovery of the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England was the first European exploration of the mainland of North America.