History's Greatest Voyages of Exploration

Mutiny. Disease. Starvation. Cannibals. From the ancient wayfarers to modern astronauts, world explorers have blazed trails fraught with danger. Yet, as History's Greatest Voyages of Exploration vividly demonstrates, exploration continues to be one of humanity's deepest impulses. Across 24 lectures that unveil the process by which we came to know the far reaches of our planet, you'll witness the awe-inspiring and surprisingly interconnected tale of global exploration. An award-winning history professor from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, revolutionizes how you view the world as he introduces you to some of the greatest and most influential explorers ever known-successful as well as unsuccessful, admirable as well as flawed. You'll be spellbound as you learn of the treacherous, at times fatal, expeditions into the unknown these adventurers embarked upon, whether to the frozen Poles, Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa, the ocean's depths, or the final frontier of space. Through it all, you consider what drove these intrepid individuals, from proselytizing and pilgrimage to the lure of wealth, conquest, fame, and new lands, as evidenced by the Vikings' arrival in North America; Marco Polo's journey along the Silk Road to China; Christopher Columbus' "Enterprise of the Indies"; the conquistadors' ravages in Latin America; and the tiny kingdom of Portugal's triumphant circumnavigation of Africa to seize control of trade in the Indian Ocean. In every lesson, you'll follow these fascinating figures - including several remarkable women - as they venture into uncharted territory and put themselves, and often their crews, in dire peril. With Professor Liulevicius' uniquely global approach, you also get a meaningful portrait of the travels of non-Westerners, as well as the perspectives of discovered people.

All Lectures:
1. The Earliest Explorers
2. The Scientific Voyage of Pytheas the Greek
3. St. Brendan - The Travels of an Irish Monk
4. Xuanzang's Journey to the West
5. Leif Eriksson the Lucky
6. Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville
7. Ibn Battuta - Never the Same Route Twice
8. Portugal's Great Leap Forward
9. The Enigmatic Christopher Columbus
10. Magellan and the Advent of Globalization
11. The Ruthless Ambition of the Conquistadors
12. Henry Hudson - Death on the Ice
13. The Jesuits on a Global Mission
14. Captain Cook Maps the World
15. Alexander von Humboldt - Explorer Genius
16. Jefferson Dispatches Lewis and Clark
17. Sir John Franklin's Epic Disaster
18. Ida Pfeiffer - Victorian Extreme Traveler
19. Japan Discovers the West
20. Dr. Livingstone and Mary Kingsley in Africa
21. Arctic Feats and Fates
22. Antarctic Rivalries
23. A Deep-Sea Dive into the Mariana Trench
24. The Race to Outer Space