Off the map: tales of endurance and exploration

pt. 1. The age of reconnaissance: To the heart of the Mongol Empire : Marco Polo (1271-95) The wanderings of Ibn Battuta (1325-55) Sailing west to America : Christopher Columbus (1492-1506) East to the Indies : Vasco da Gama (1497-9) A passage to the Pacific : Ferdinand Magellan (1519-22) Adventures in the Amazon : Francisco de Orellana (1541-6) The quest for the North-East Passage : William Barents (1594-7) Mutiny in the Arctic : Henry Hudson (1610-11) Looking for a North-West Passage : Luke Foxe and Thomas James (1631-2) Colonizing the American wilderness : René La Salle (1669-87) pt. 2. The age of inquiry: Linking Russia and America : Vitus Bering (1725-42) Measuring the world : Charles-Marie de la Condamine (1735-45) In search of the great southern continent : James Cook (1768-79) The conquest of Mont Blanc : Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1760-88) Into the heart of South America : Alexander von Humboldt (1799-1803) The great trigonometrical survey (1800-66) Across the American wilderness : Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (1803-6) Furthest into the Arctic : W.E. Parry (1818-27) Across Canada's badlands : John Franklin (1818-25) The quest for the Niger : Hugh Clapperton and Richard Landler (1821-31) The road to Timbuctoo : Gordon Laing and René Caillié (1824-8) Four winters in the Arctic : John Ross (1829-33) Charting the Antarctic : James Clark Ross (1839-43)

The search for Franklin (1845-59)

pt. 3. The age of endeavor: Crossing the Australian continent : Robert Burke and William Wills (1860-1)

The source of the Nile : Richard Burton and John Speke (1857-65)

The conquest of the Matterhorn : Edward Whymper (1865)

The great survey : the pundits (1865-1902)

Marooned off Greenland : Paul Hegemann and Karl Koldewey (1869-70)

An Arctic drift : Charles Hall, George Tyson and the Polaris (1871-3)

Across the dark continent : David Livingstone and H.M. Stanley (1871-7)

The discovery of Franz Josef Land : Carl Weyprecht and Julius von Payer (1872-4)

Britain's fight for the North Pole : George Nares (1875-6)

A Siberian disaster : George De Long (1879-82)

Tragedy on Ellesmere Island : Adolphus Greely (1881-4)

Skiing to the North Pole : Fridtjof Nansen (1893-6)

By balloon to the top of the world : Salomon Andrée (1897)

Across the Sahara to the Congo : Fernand Foureau (1899-1900)

Italy's northernmost : the Duke of Abruzzi (1899-1900)

The Pole at last? : Robert Peary and Frederick Cook (1908-9)

The race for the South Pole : Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen (1911-12)

Alone in the Antarctic : Douglas Mawson (1911-13)

The Imperial TransAntarctic Expedition : Ernest Shackleton (1914-16)

The conquest of Everest? : George Mallory and Sandy Irvine (1924)

By airship to the North Pole : Umberto Nobile (1928).