Famous Explorers

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Date:

Instructions: Test your knowledge of history's greatest explorers!

1.
Who led the first expedition to successfully circumnavigate the globe?
A
Christopher Columbus
B
Ferdinand Magellan
C
Vasco da Gama
D
Francis Drake
2.
Which explorer is credited with 'discovering' America in 1492?
A
Christopher Columbus
B
Leif Erikson
C
John Cabot
D
Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Who was the first person to reach the South Pole?
A
Richard Byrd
B
Ernest Shackleton
C
Roald Amundsen
D
Robert Falcon Scott
4.
Which Portuguese explorer was the first European to reach India by sea?
A
Bartolomeu Dias
B
Vasco da Gama
C
Prince Henry the Navigator
D
Pedro Álvares Cabral
5.
Lewis and Clark led an expedition to explore which part of the world?
A
Central Africa
B
South America
C
The Arctic
D
Western North America
6.
Which explorer is known for his search for the source of the Nile River?
A
Richard Francis Burton
B
Mungo Park
C
Henry Morton Stanley
D
David Livingstone
7.
Who led the first successful expedition to the summit of Mount Everest in 1953?
A
George Mallory
B
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay
C
Reinhold Messner
D
John Hunt
8.
Which explorer named the Pacific Ocean?
A
Ferdinand Magellan
B
Francis Drake
C
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
D
James Cook
9.
Who was the famous journalist sent to find David Livingstone in Africa?
A
John Speke
B
Henry Morton Stanley
C
Richard Francis Burton
D
Samuel Baker
10.
Which Viking explorer is believed to have reached North America around 1000 AD?
A
Harald Hardrada
B
Erik the Red
C
Bjorn Ironside
D
Leif Erikson
11.
Which explorer led three voyages to the Pacific and was killed in Hawaii in 1779?
A
James Cook
B
Francis Drake
C
Abel Tasman
D
William Dampier
12.
Who was the first European to reach the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa?
A
Vasco da Gama
B
Prince Henry the Navigator
C
Bartolomeu Dias
D
Alfonso de Albuquerque
13.
Which Spanish conquistador conquered the Aztec Empire?
A
Hernando de Soto
B
Francisco Pizarro
C
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
D
Hernán Cortés
14.
Who led the expedition that first reached the North Pole, a claim generally credited in 1909?
A
Roald Amundsen
B
Fridtjof Nansen
C
Robert Peary
D
Frederick Cook
15.
Which explorer's failed Antarctic expedition aboard the Endurance became one of history's greatest survival stories?
A
Douglas Mawson
B
Roald Amundsen
C
Robert Falcon Scott
D
Ernest Shackleton

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