10 most difficult ex­plor­ers riddles

Janszoon reached the Gulf of Carpentaira (north of Australia) and made a landfall in 1606. However, he found the land swampy and the people inhospitable. He called the land he had discovered “Nieu Zeland” after the Dutch province of Zeeland, but the name was not adopted and was later used by Abel Tasman for New Zealand.

In a three year journey between 1903 and 1906, Amundsen explored the passage with a crew of no more than six, in the converted 47-ton herring boat Gjøa. Spending winters with ship trapped in ice, he learned from the local Netsilik people about Arctic survival skills that would later prove useful. For example, he learned to use sled dogs and to wear animal skins in lieu of heavy, woolen parkas. Amundsen later led the expeditions to discover the South Pole (1911) and the North Pole (1926).

On 15 February 1500, Cabral was appointed a commander of a fleet sailing for India. The fleet crossed the Equator on 9 April, and sailed westward as far as possible from the African continent in what was known as the Volta do mar (literally "turn of the sea") navigational technique. They landed in a land they took for an unknown island and named Ilha de Vera Cruz (Island of the True Cross), which in fact was Brazil.

Alexander the Great founded or repopulated about 20 cities throughout Eurasia and named them all after him, the most famous being Alexandria, Egypt.

In 1577, half a century after Magellan's expedition, Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth with five ships and 164 men. During his expedition, he captured several Portuguese and Spanish Ships (including treasury ship with 36 kg of gold) and sacked Valparaiso. After his return, the Queen's half-share of the cargo surpassed the rest of the crown's income for that entire year.

Jacek Pałkiewicz is a Polish journalist, traveler and explorer. He is best known for his 1996 expedition to the Andes, which indisputably established the source of the Amazon River to be the Kiwicha snowfield at the feet of Mismi in the Peruvian Andes.

During his trip to India da Gama met hostility in the Arab-controlled territories of East Africa. Eventually the expedition resorted to piracy, looting unarmed Arab merchant ships. During the second expedition, Gama's fleet set about capturing any Arab vessel he came across in Indian waters, most notoriously the Miri, a pilgrim ship from Mecca, whose passengers (including women and children) he had locked and buried to death - despite their offers to pay ransom and begs for mercy.

During his expedition in 1487-1488, Bartolomeu Dias reached the tip of South Africa. Dias wanted to continue sailing to India, but he was forced to turn back when his crew refused to go further. After returning to Lisbon, Dias helped in the construction of the ships that were used by Vasco da Gama to eventually reach India ten years later.

Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo, his father's name was Domenico, and his brothers were named Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino and Giacomo.

The Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo houses vessels and maps from the 1964 Kon-Tiki expedition, during which Norwegian etnographer Thor Heyerdahl sailed 8,000 km (5,000 mi) across the Pacific Ocean in a self-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands.