Henry Hudson ( c. 1565 – disappeared 23 June 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the northeastern United States.

In 1607 and 1608, Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a rumoured Northeast Passage to Cathay via a route above the Arctic Circle. In 1609, he landed in North America on behalf of the Dutch East India Company and explored the region around the modern New York metropolitan area. Looking for a Northwest Passage to Asia on his ship Halve Maen ("Half Moon"), he sailed up the Hudson River, which was later named after him, and thereby laid the foundation for Dutch colonization of the region. His contributions to the exploration of the New World were significant and lasting. His voyages helped to establish European contact with the native peoples of North America and contributed to the development of trade and commerce. ( Full article...)

Merkury Vagin ( Russian: Меркурий Вагин) (died 1712) was a Russian Arctic explorer.

In 1712, together with Yakov Permyakov, Vagin explored the region of the eastern Laptev Sea coast. His exploration included Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island, the southernmost of the New Siberian Archipelago. With a group of Cossacks they crossed the Yana Bay over the ice from the mouth of the Yana River; after reaching Bolshoy Lyakhovsky, they explored the then-unknown island, which had been reported by Permyakov two years earlier. ( Full article...)

Anthony de la Roché (spelled also Antoine de la Roché, Antonio de la Roché or Antonio de la Roca in some sources) was a 17th-century English maritime explorer and merchant, born in London to a French Huguenot father and an English mother, who took part in a joint venture established by English and Dutch shipowners in the Spanish port city of Cádiz in order to engage in the lucrative New World trade. During a commercial voyage between Europe and South America he was blown off course in Drake Passage, visited the island of South Georgia and sighted Clerke Rocks in 1675, thereby making the first discovery of land in the Antarctic. In doing so he crossed the Antarctic Convergence, a natural boundary of the Antarctic region that would be described a quarter of a century later by the English scientist Edmund Halley. ( Full article...)

Henry Robertson Bowers (29 July 1883 – c. 29 March 1912) was one of Robert Falcon Scott's polar party on the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition of 1910–1913, all of whom died during their return from the South Pole. ( Full article...)

Vice-Admiral Sir Robert John Le Mesurier McClure CB (28 January 1807 – 17 October 1873) was an Irish explorer who explored the Arctic. In 1854 he traversed the Northwest Passage by boat and sledge, and was the first to circumnavigate the Americas. ( Full article...)

Alfons Jan Nagórski (1888–1976), also known as Ivan Iosifovich Nagurski, was a Polish engineer and pioneer of aviation, the first person to fly an airplane in the Arctic and the first aviator to perform a loop with a flying boat. ( Full article...)

Admiral Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev ( Russian: Михаил Петрович Лазарев; 14 November [ O.S. 3 November] 1788 – 23 April [ O.S. 11 April] 1851) was a Russian fleet commander and an explorer. ( Full article...)

Brendan of Clonfert (c. AD 484 – c. 577) is one of the early Irish monastic saints and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. He is also referred to as Brendan the Navigator, Brendan the Voyager, Brendan the Anchorite, and Brendan the Bold. The Irish translation of his name is Naomh Bréanainn or Naomh Breandán. He is mainly known for his legendary voyage to find the “Isle of the Blessed” which is sometimes referred to as “Saint Brendan’s Island”. The written narrative of his journey comes from the immram The Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot).

Saint Brendan's feast day is celebrated on 16 May by Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox Christians. ( Full article...)

The Papar (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈpʰaːpar̥]; from Latin papa, via Old Irish, meaning "father" or "pope") were, according to early Icelandic sagas, Irish monks who took eremitic residence in parts of what is now Iceland before that island's habitation by the Norsemen of Scandinavia, as evidenced by the sagas and recent archaeological findings. ( Full article...)

Thomas Abernethy (1803 – 13 April 1860) was a Scottish seafarer, gunner in the Royal Navy, and polar explorer. Because he was neither an officer nor a gentleman, he was little mentioned in the books written by the leaders of the expeditions he went on, but was praised in what was written. In 1857, he was awarded the Arctic Medal for his service as an able seaman on the 1824–25 voyage of HMS Hecla, the first of his five expeditions for which participants were eligible for the award. He was in parties that, for their time, reached the furthest north, the furthest south (twice), and the nearest to the South Magnetic Pole. In 1831, along with James Clark Ross's team of six, Abernethy was in the first party ever to reach the North Magnetic Pole. ( Full article...)

Vladimir Ivanovich Voronin ( Russian: Владимир Иванович Воронин; October 17, 1890 – October 18, 1952) was a Soviet Navy captain, born in Sumsky Posad, in the present Republic of Karelia, Russia. In 1932 he commanded the expedition of the Soviet icebreaker A. Sibiryakov which made the first successful crossing of the Northern Sea Route in a single navigation without wintering. This voyage was organized by the All-Union Arctic Institute (presently known as the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute). ( Full article...)

The Pole of Inaccessibility research station ( Russian: Полюс недоступности) is a defunct Soviet research station in Kemp Land, Antarctica, at the southern pole of inaccessibility (the point in Antarctica furthest from any ocean) as defined in 1958 when the station was established. Later definitions give other locations, all relatively near this point. It performed meteorological observations from 14 to 26 December 1958. The Pole of Inaccessibility has the world's coldest year-round average temperature of −58.2 °C (−72.8 °F).

It is 878 km (546 mi) from the South Pole, and approximately 600 km (370 mi) from Sovetskaya. The surface elevation is 3,724 meters (12,218 feet). It was reached on 14 December 1958 by an 18-man traversing party of the 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition. Its WMO ID is 89550. ( Full article...)

Yakov Permyakov ( Russian: Яков Пермяков; died 1712) was a Russian seafarer, explorer, merchant, and Cossack.

In 1710, while sailing from the Lena River to the Kolyma River, Permyakov observed the silhouette of two unknown island groups in the sea. Those islands would later be named Bolshoy Lyakhovsky and the Medvyezhi Islands. ( Full article...)

The Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901–1903 was a scientific expedition led by Otto Nordenskjöld and Carl Anton Larsen. It was the first Swedish endeavour to Antarctica in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. ( Full article...)

Arctic exploration is the physical exploration of the Arctic region of the Earth. It refers to the historical period during which mankind has explored the region north of the Arctic Circle. Historical records suggest that humankind have explored the northern extremes since 325 BC, when the ancient Greek sailor Pytheas reached a frozen sea while attempting to find a source of the metal tin. Dangerous oceans and poor weather conditions often fetter explorers attempting to reach polar regions, and journeying through these perils by sight, boat, and foot has proven difficult. ( Full article...)

The Antarctic Treaty and related agreements, collectively known as the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), regulate international relations with respect to Antarctica, Earth's only continent without a native human population. It was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War, designating the continent as a scientific preserve, establishing freedom of scientific investigation, and banning military activity; for the purposes of the treaty system, Antarctica is defined as all the land and ice shelves south of 60°S latitude. Since September 2004, the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which implements the treaty system, is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The main treaty was opened for signature on 1 December 1959, and officially entered into force on 23 June 1961. The original signatories were the 12 countries active in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957–58: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries had established over 55 Antarctic research stations for the IGY, and the subsequent promulgation of the treaty was seen as a diplomatic expression of the operational and scientific cooperation that had been achieved. , the treaty has 56 parties. ( Full article...)

Matthew Alexander Henson (August 8, 1866 – March 9, 1955) was an African American explorer who accompanied Robert Peary on seven voyages to the Arctic over a period of nearly 23 years. They spent a total of 18 years on expeditions together. He is best known for his participation in the 1908–1909 expedition that claimed to have reached the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909. Henson said he was the first of their party to reach the North Pole.

Henson was born in Nanjemoy, Maryland, to sharecropper parents who were free Black Americans before the Civil War. He spent most of his early life in Washington, D.C., but left school at the age of twelve to work as a cabin boy. He later returned to Washington and worked as a salesclerk at a department store. One of his customers was Robert Peary, who in 1887 hired him as a personal valet. At the time, Peary was working on the Nicaragua Canal. ( Full article...)

Admiral Sir Albert Hastings Markham KCB (11 November 1841 – 28 October 1918) was a British explorer, author, and officer in the Royal Navy. In 1903 he was invested as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. He is also remembered for designing the flag of New Zealand. ( Full article...)

Denmark and the former real union of Denmark–Norway had a colonial empire from the 17th through the 20th centuries, large portions of which were found in the Americas. Denmark and Norway in one form or another also maintained land claims in Greenland since the 13th century, the former up through the twenty-first century. ( Full article...)

Sir Jameson Boyd Adams KCVO CBE DSO RD (6 March 1880 – 30 April 1962) was a British Antarctic explorer and Royal Naval Reserve officer. He participated in the Nimrod expedition, the first expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in an unsuccessful attempt to reach the South Pole. ( Full article...)

Snæbjörn galti Hólmsteinsson ( Modern Icelandic: [ˈstnaiːˌpjœ(r)tn̥ ˈkal̥tɪ ˈhoulmˌsteinsˌsɔːn]; Old Norse: Snæbjǫrn galti Hólmsteinsson [ˈsnɛːˌbjɔrn ˈɡɑlte ˈhoːlmˌstɛinsˌson]; c. 910 – c. 978) was the first Norseman to intentionally navigate to Greenland, doing so in 978 CE.

His voyage followed the accidental discovery of lands west of Iceland by Gunnbjörn Ulfsson, probably in the early 10th century. According to records from the time, Galte led the first attempt to colonize the eastern coast of Greenland. However his effort ended with disaster and he was killed in internal strife. There had been a saga about the voyage of Snæbjörn, but it has been lost over time. ( Full article...)

George Washington De Long (August 22, 1844 – c. October 31, 1881) was a United States Navy officer and explorer who led the ill-fated Jeannette expedition of 1879–1881, in search of the Open Polar Sea. ( Full article...)

Charles Wilkes (April 3, 1798 – February 8, 1877) was an American naval officer, ship's captain, and explorer. He led the United States Exploring Expedition (1838–1842).

During the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865, he commanded USS San Jacinto during the Trent Affair in which he stopped a Royal Mail ship and removed two Confederate diplomats, which almost led to war between the United States and the United Kingdom. ( Full article...)

Emil Bessels (2 June 1847 – 30 March 1888) was a German zoologist, entomologist, physician, and Arctic researcher who is best known for his controversial role in the attempted but ill-fated Polaris expedition to the North Pole in 1871. Circumstantial evidence strongly points to Bessels as the most likely suspect in the death of the expedition's commander, American explorer Charles Francis Hall, by arsenic poisoning.

Bessels spent much of his scientific career at the Smithsonian Institution. ( Full article...)

Jacob van Heemskerck (3 March 1567 – 25 April 1607) was a Dutch explorer and naval admiral. He is generally known for his victory over the Spanish at the Battle of Gibraltar, where he ultimately lost his life. ( Full article...)