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James Cook

James Cook

This article refers to the British navigator and cartographer. For alternative meanings, see Captain James Cook (disambiguation). Captain James Cook (disambiguation) Captain James Cook (disambiguation) James Cook (October 27, 1728 (O.S.) – February 14, 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, and map maker. He made three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which large areas were accurately charted, and several islands and coastlines recorded for the first time on European maps. His most notable accomplishments were the British discovery and claiming of the east coast of Australia, the European discovery of the Hawaiian Islands, and the first circumnavigation and mapping of New Zealand.

Early Life

James Cook was born in relatively humble circumstances at Marton in North Yorkshire, near what is today recognised as the town of Middlesbrough. Cook was one of five children born to a local woman and a Scottish immigrant farm labourer, Grace and James Sr. As a child, Cook moved with his family to a farm at Great Ayton where he was educated at the local school, his studies financed by his father's employer. At 13 he began work with his father, now the farm's manager. In 1745 when he was 16, Cook left home to be apprenticed in a grocer/haberdashery in the fishing village of Staithes. According to legend, Cook first felt the lure of the sea while gazing out the shop window. After about a year and a half in Staithes, the shop's owner (Mr Anderson) found James unsuited to the trade. Mr Anderson took James to the nearby port town of Whitby and introduced him to John and Henry Walker. John and Henry were prominent local ship-owners and Quakers, and were in the coal trade business. Cook was taken on as a merchant navy apprentice in their small fleet of vessels plying coal along the English coast. His first assignment was aboard the collier Freelove, and he spent several years on this, and various other coasters sailing between the Tyne and London. For this new apprenticeship, Cook applied himself to the study of algebra, trigonometry, navigation, and astronomy, skills he would need one day to command his own ship. His three-year apprenticeship completed, Cook began working on trading ships in the Baltic Sea. He soon progressed through the merchant navy ranks, starting with his 1752 promotion to Mate (officer in charge of navigation) aboard the collier brig Friendship. In 1755 he was offered command of this vessel, but within the month he volunteered for service in the British Royal Navy. In 1755, The Kingdom of Great Britain was re-arming for what was to become the Seven Years War. Cook saw that his career could advance more quickly in military service. However, this required starting over in the naval hierarchy, and on June 17 he began as able seaman aboard HMS Eagle under the command of Captain Hugh Palliser. He was very quickly promoted to Master's Mate.

Family Life

Cook married Elizabeth Bates, the daughter of one of his mentors, on December 21, 1762. The couple would eventually have six children. When not at sea, James Cook settled in the East End of London. He attended St Paul's church, Shadwell, where his son James was baptised.

Start of Royal Navy career

St Paul's church, Shadwell During the Seven Years' War, he participated in the siege of Quebec City before the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. He showed a talent for surveying and cartography and was responsible for mapping much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege allowing General Wolfe to make his famous stealth attack on the Plains of Abraham. Cook's surveying skills were put to good use in the 1760s mapping the jagged coast of Newfoundland. Cook surveyed the northwest stretch in 1763 and 1764, the south coast between the Burin Peninsula and Cape Ray in 1765 and 1766, and the west coast in 1767. Cook’s five seasons in Newfoundland produced the first large-scale and accurate maps of the island’s coasts; they also gave Cook his mastery of practical surveying, achieved under often adverse conditions, and brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society at a crucial moment both in his personal career and in the direction of British overseas discovery. Cook's huge achievements can be attributed to a combination of excellent seamanship, his superior surveying and cartographic skills, courage in exploring dangerous locations to confirm the facts (e.g. dipping into the Antarctic circle repeatedly and exploring around the Great Barrier Reef), ability to lead men in adverse conditions, and boldness both with regard to the extent of his explorations and his willingness to exceed the instructions given to him by the Admiralty..

First voyage (1768-1771)

In 1766, the Royal Society hired Cook to travel to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record a transit of Venus across the Sun. Before starting his first voyage, Cook was granted Lieutenant's "Commission" from the Admiralty. In command of HM Bark Endeavour, he sailed from England in 1768, rounded Cape Horn and continued westward across the Pacific to arrive at Tahiti on April 13, 1769, where the observations were to be made. The transit was scheduled to occur on June 3, and in the meantime he commissioned the building of a small fort and observatory. The astronomer appointed to the task was Charles Green, assistant to the recently-appointed Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne. The primary purpose of the observation was to obtain measurements which could be used to more accurately calculate the distance of Venus from the Sun. If this could be achieved, then the distances of the other known planets could be worked out based on their relative orbits. On the day of the transit observation, Cook recorded:
- "Saturday 3^rd This day prov'd as favourable to our purpose as we could wish, not a Clowd was to be seen the Whole day and the Air was perfectly clear, so that we had every advantage we could desire in Observing the whole of the passage of the Planet Venus over the Suns disk: we very distinctly saw an Atmosphere or dusky shade round the body of the Planet which very much disturbed the times of the contacts particularly the two internal ones. D^r Solander observed as well as M^r Green and my self, and we differ'd from one another in observeing the times of the Contacts much more than could be expected..." Disappointingly, the separate measurements of Green, Cook and Solander varied more than the anticipated margin of error. Their instrumentation was adequate by the standards of the time, but the resolution still could not eliminate the errors. When their results were later compared to those of the other observations of the same event made elsewhere for the exercise, the net result was not as conclusive or accurate as had been hoped. Once the observations were completed, Cook then departed in order to execute the secondary purpose of his voyage: namely, to search the south Pacific for signs of the postulated southern continent of Terra Australis. The Royal Society, and especially Alexander Dalrymple, believed that it must exist, however Cook had his own personal doubts on the subject. With the help of a Tahitian named Tupaia, who had extensive knowledge of Pacific geography, Cook managed to reach New Zealand, becoming only the second European in history to do so (behind Abel Tasman over a century earlier, in 1642). Cook mapped the complete New Zealand coastline, making only some minor errors (such as calling Banks Peninsula an island, and thinking Stewart Island/Rakiura was part of the South Island). He also discovered Cook Strait, which separates the North Island from the South Island, and which Tasman had not seen. He then set course westwards, intending to strike for Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania, earlier sighted by Tasman) in order to establish whether or not it formed part of the fabled southern continent. However, they were forced to maintain a more northerly course owing to prevailing gales, and sailed onwards until one afternoon when land was sighted, which Cook named Point Hicks. Cook calculated that Van Diemen's Land ought to lie due south of their position, but having found the coastline trending to the southwest, recorded his doubt that this landmass was connected to it. This point was on the southeastern coast of the Australian continent, and in doing so his expedition became the first recorded Europeans to have encountered its eastern coastline. In his journal, Cook recorded the event thus:
- "the Southermost Point of land we had in sight which bore from us W1/4S I judged to lay in the Latitude of 38°..0' S° and in the Longitude of 211°..07' W^t from the Meridion of Greenwich. I have named it Point Hicks, because Leuit^t Hicks was the first who discover'd this land". The ship's log recorded the date as being Thursday April 19, 1770; however, Cook had not made the necessary adjustments when they had earlier crossed the 180th meridian of Longitude, and the actual calendar date was Friday, April 20. The landmark of this sighting is generally reckoned to be a point lying about half-way between the present-day towns of Orbost and Mallacoota on the southeastern coast of the state of Victoria. A later survey done in 1843 ignored or overlooked Cook's earlier naming of the point, giving it the name Cape Everard. On the 200th anniversary of the sighting, the name was officially changed back to Point Hicks. 1843 The Endeavour continued northwards along the coastline, keeping the land in sight and Cook charting and naming landmarks as he went. A little over a week later, they came across an extensive but shallow inlet, and upon entering it moored off a low headland fronted by sand dunes. It was here, on April 29 that Cook and crew made their first landfall on the continent, at a place now known as Kurnell. At first Cook bestowed the name Stingaree (Stingray) Bay to the inlet after the many such creatures found there; this was later changed to Botanist Bay and finally Botany Bay after the unique specimens retrieved by the botanists Banks, Solander and Spöring. This first landing site was later to be promoted (particularly by Joseph Banks) as a suitable candidate for situating a settlement and British colonial outpost. However, almost eighteen years after this first landing, when Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet arrived in early 1788 to establish an outpost and penal colony, they found that the bay and surrounds did not live up to the promising picture which had been painted. Instead, Phillip shortly thereafter gave orders to relocate to a harbour a few kilometres to the north, which Cook had named Port Jackson but had not further explored. It was in this harbour at a place Phillip named Sydney Cove that the settlement of Sydney was established. The settlement was for some time afterwards still referred to generally as Botany Bay. The expedition's scientific members commenced the first European scientific documentation of Australian fauna and flora. At Cook's original landing contact was made with the local Australian Aborigine inhabitants. As the ships sailed into the harbour, they noticed aborigines on both of the headlands. At about 2pm they put the anchor down near a group of six to eight huts. Two aborigines, a younger and an older man came down to the boat. They ignored gifts from Cook. A musket was fired over their heads which wounded the older man slightly and he ran towards the huts. He came back with other men and threw spears at Cook's men although they did no harm. They were chased off after two more rounds were fired. The adults had left, but Cook found several Aboriginal children in the huts, and left some beads with them as a gesture of friendship. Cook continued northwards, charting along the coastline. A mishap occurred when the Endeavour ran aground on a shoal of the Great Barrier Reef, on June 11, 1770. The ship was seriously damaged and his voyage was delayed almost seven weeks while repairs were carried out on the beach (near the docks of modern Cooktown, at the mouth of the Endeavour River). While there, Joseph Banks, Herman Spöring and Daniel Solander made their first major collections of Australian flora. The crew's encounters with the local Aboriginal people were mainly peaceable; from the group encountered here the name "kangaroo" was to be entered into the English language, coming from the local Guugu-Yimidhirr name for a Grey Kangaroo, which was gangaroo. Once repairs were complete the voyage continued, eventually passing by the northern-most point of Cape York Peninsula and then sailing through Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, earlier navigated by Luis Vaez de Torres in 1604. At that point in the voyage, Cook had lost no men to scurvy, a remarkable and practically unheard-of achievement in 18th century long-distance sea-faring. He forced his men to eat such foods as citrus fruits and sauerkraut — under punishment of flogging if they did not comply — although no one yet understood why these foods prevented scurvy. Unfortunately, he sailed on for Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies, to put in for repairs. Batavia was known for its outbreaks of malaria, and, before they returned home in 1771, many in Cook's crew would succumb to the disease and other ailments such as dysentery, including the Tahitian Tupaia, Banks's Finnish secretary and a fellow scientist Herman Spöring, astronomer Charles Green, and the illustrator Sydney Parkinson. Cook had named the Spöring Island on the coast of New Zealand to honor Herman Spöring and his work on the voyage. The Endeavour, his ship on this first voyage, would later lend its name to the Space Shuttle Endeavour, as well as the Endeavour River. Cook's journals were published upon his return, and he became something of a hero among the scientific community. Among the general public, however, the aristocratic botanist Joseph Banks was a bigger hero. Banks even attempted to take command of Cook's second voyage, but removed himself from the voyage before it began. Joseph Banks

Second voyage (1772-1775)

Shortly after his return, Cook was was promoted from Lieutenant to Commander (correctly "Master and Commander"). Then once again he was commissioned by the Royal Society to search for the mythical Terra Australis. On his first voyage, Cook had demonstrated by circumnavigating New Zealand that it was not attached to a larger landmass to the south; and although by charting almost the entire eastern coastline of Australia he had shown it to be continental in size, the Terra Australis being sought was supposed to lie further to the south. Despite this evidence to the contrary Dalrymple and others of the Royal Society still believed that this massive southern continent should exist. Cook commanded HMS Resolution on this voyage, while Tobias Furneaux commanded its companion ship, HMS Adventure. Cook's expedition circumnavigated the globe at a very high southern latitude, becoming one of the first to cross the Antarctic Circle on January 17, 1773, reaching 71°10' south. He also discovered South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. In the Antarctic fog, the Resolution and Adventure became separated. Furneaux made his way to New Zealand, where he lost some of his men following a fight with the Maori, and eventually sailed back to Britain, while Cook continued to explore the Antarctic. Cook almost discovered the mainland of Antarctica, but turned back north towards Tahiti to resupply his ship. He then resumed his southward course in a second fruitless attempt to find the supposed continent. On this leg of the voyage he brought with him a young Tahitian named Omai, who proved to be somewhat less knowledgeable about the Pacific than Tupaia had been on the first voyage. On his return voyage, he landed at the Friendly Islands, Easter Island, and Vanuatu, in 1774. His reports upon his return home put to rest the popular myth of Terra Australis. Another accomplishment of the second voyage was the successful employment of the K1 chronometer which facilitated accurate measurement of longitude. Upon his return, Cook was was promoted to the naval rank of Captain and given an honorary retirement from the Royal Navy (as officer in the Greenwich Hospital). But Cook could not be kept away from the sea. A third voyage was planned to find the Northwest Passage. Cook would travel to the Pacific and hoped to travel east to the Atlantic, while a simultaneous voyage would travel the opposite way.

Third voyage (1776-1779)

On his last voyage, Cook once again commanded HMS Resolution, while Captain Charles Clerke commanded HMS Discovery. Ostensibly the voyage was planned to return Omai to Tahiti; this is what the general public believed, as he had become a favourite curiosity in London. After returning Omai, Cook travelled north and in 1778 became the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands, which he named the "Sandwich Islands" after the 4th Earl of Sandwich, the acting First Lord of the Admiralty. In Hawaii, he was treated with great reverence, as the natives thought he was an incarnation of the god Lono. From there, he travelled east to explore the west coast of North America, eventually landing near the First Nations village at Yuquot in Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island, although he unknowingly sailed past the Strait of Juan de Fuca. He explored and mapped the coast from California all the way to the Bering Strait, on the way discovering what came to be known as Cook Inlet in Alaska. The Bering Strait proved to be impassable, although he made several attempts to sail through it. Cook became increasingly frustrated on this voyage, and probably began to suffer from a stomach ailment; it is speculated that this led to irrational behaviour towards his crew, such as forcing them to eat walrus meat, which they found inedible. Cook returned to Hawaii in 1779. On February 14 at Kealakekua Bay, some Hawaiians stole one of Cook's small boats. Normally, as thefts were quite common in Tahiti and the other islands, he would have taken hostages until the stolen articles were returned. Indeed, he planned to take hostage the King of Hawaii, Kalaniopuu. However, his stomach ailment and increasingly irrational behaviour led to an altercation with a large crowd of Hawaiians gathered on the beach. In the ensuing skirmish, shots were fired at the Hawaiians and Cook was clubbed and stabbed to death. Clerke took over the expedition and made a final attempt to pass through the Bering Strait. The Resolution and Discovery finally returned home in 1780. Cook's account of his voyage was completed by Captain James King.

Cook's protégés

A number of the junior officers who served under Cook went on to distinctive accomplishments of their own.
- William Bligh, Cook's sailing master, was given command of the HMS Bounty in 1787 to sail to Tahiti and return with breadfruit. William Bligh is most known for having his crew mutiny and set him adrift in 1789. (See: Mutiny on the Bounty)
- George Vancouver, one of Cook's midshipmen, later led a voyage of exploration to the Pacific Coast of North America from 1791 to 1794.
- George Dixon sailed under Cook on his third expedition, and later commanded an expedition of his own.

Legacy

James Cook's 11 years sailing around the Pacific Ocean contributed much to European knowledge of the area. Several islands such as Easter Island and the Sandwich Islands were encountered for the first time by Europeans, and his more accurate navigational charting of large areas of the Pacific was a major achievement. To create accurate maps, latitude and longitude need to be known. Navigators had been able to work out latitude accurately for centuries by measuring the distance of the sun or a star above the horizon with a sextant. But longitude was more difficult to measure accurately because it expands with the Earth's increasing circumferance at the equator. The Earth turns a full 360 degrees about its axis (one sidereal day) once every 24 hours; with the exact amount of time being, 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.091 seconds. This converts to approximately 15 degrees every hour and therefore, 1 degree every 4 minutes. Cook figured that by calculating the time difference from one's starting point at noon, using the position of the sun, one can calculate longitude. Cook obtained accurate longitude measurements during his first voyage due to his navigational skills, the help of an astronomer Charles Green and by using the newly published Nautical Almanac tables, which contained distances between the moon and seven selected stars. On his second voyage Cook used the K1 chronometer made by Larcum Kennedy, which was about the size of a pocket watch. It was a copy of the H4 clock made by John Harrison which proved to be the first to keep accurate time at sea when used on the ship Deptford's journey to Jamaica, 1761-1762. There were several artists on the first voyage. Sydney Parkinson was involved in many of the drawings, completing 264 drawings before his death near the end of the voyage. They were of immense scientific value to British botanists. Cook's second expedition included the artist William Hodges, who produced notable landscape paintings of Tahiti, Easter Island, and other locations. Cook was accompanied by many scientists, whose observations and discoveries added to the importance of the voyages. Joseph Banks, a botanist, went on the first voyage along with fellow botanist Daniel Solander from Sweden. Between them they collected over 3,000 plant species Ever the observer, Cook was the first European to have extensive contact with various people of the Pacific. He sailed to many islands near the Phillipines and even in smaller, more remote islands in the South Pacific. He correctly concluded there was a relationship between all of the people in the Pacific, despite being separated by miles of ocean. Cook ensured his crews had citrus fruits in their diets to control scurvy, a disease caused by lack of vitamin C, which was fatal if not treated.

References

- Aughton, Peter. 2002. Endeavour: The Story of Captain Cook's First Great Epic Voyage. Cassell & Co., London.
- John Cawte Beaglehole, biographer of Cook and editor of his Journals.
- Edwards, Philip, ed. 2003. James Cook: The Journals. Prepared from the original manuscripts by J. C. Beaglehole 1955-67. Penguin Books, London.
- Williams, Glyndwr, ed. 1997. Captain Cook's Voyages: 1768-1779. The Folio Society, London.
- Sydney Daily Telegraph. 1970. Captain Cook: His Artists - His Voyages. The Sydney Daily Telegraph Portfolio of Original Works by Artists who sailed with Captain Cook. Australian Consolidated Press, Sydney.
- Thomas, Nicholas. 2003. The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain James Cook. Walker & Co., New York. ISBN 0-8027-1412-9

External links

- [http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=35939 Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online]
- [http://www.win.tue.nl/~engels/discovery/cook.html James Cook Links Page]
- [http://www.captaincooksociety.com/ccsu1.htm Captain Cook Society]
- [http://www.collectionscanada.ca/explorers/kids/h3-270-e.html Explorer voyage maps including those of James Cook]
- [http://nla.gov.au/nla.ms-ms1 The Endeavour journal], as kept by James Cook - digitised and held by the National Library of Australia
- [http://cuculus.tripod.com/cook.html Captain James Cook: The World's Explorer]
- [http://southseas.nla.gov.au/ The South Seas Project]: maps and online editions of the Journals of James Cook's First Pacific Voyage. 1768-1771, Includes full text of journals kept by Cook, Joseph Banks and Sydney Parkinson, as well as the complete text of John Hawkesworth's 1773 Account of Cook's first voyage.
- [http://www.cooktowns.com/] Cooktown's Official web page
- [http://www.naturespowerhouse.info] Nature's PowerHouse in Cooktown's Botanic Gardens.
- [http://www.barkendeavour.com.au/ The Endeavour Replica] A replica of Captain Cook's vessel.
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- [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=10951 Find-A-Grave profile for James Cook] Cook, James Cook, James Cook, James Cook, James Cook, James Cook, James Cook, James Cook, James Cook, James ja:ジェームズ・クック th:เจมส์ คุก

Captain James Cook (disambiguation)

Captain James Cook may refer to:
- James Cook - British explorer, navigator, and map maker
- Captain James Cook (TV miniseries) - 1987 Australian television miniseries

1728

Events

- Astronomical aberration discovered by the astronomer James Bradley
- Swedish academy of sciences founded at Uppsala
- The founding of the University of Havana ([http://www.uh.cu/ Universidad de la Habana]), Cuba's most well-established university.

Births

- January 9 - Thomas Warton, English poet (d. 1790)
- February 21 - Emperor Peter III of Russia, husband of Catherine the Great (d. 1762)
- August 28 - John Stark, American Revolutionary War general (d. 1822)
- September 14 - Mercy Otis Warren, American playwright (d. 1814)
- October 7 - Caesar Rodney, American lawyer and signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1784)
- October 27 - James Cook, British naval captain and explorer (d. 1779)
- November 10 - Oliver Goldsmith, English writer (d. 1774)

Deaths

- February 12 - Agostino Steffani, Italian diplomat and composer (b. 1654)
- February 13 - Cotton Mather, New England Puritan minister (b. 1663)
- April 3 - James Anderson, Scottish historian (b. 1662)
- August 15 - Marin Marais, French viol player and composer (b. 1656)
- September 7 - William Burnet, British Governor of New York and New Jersey (b. 1688)
- September 23 - Christian Thomasius, German jurist (b. 1655) Category:1728 ko:1728년

February 14

February 14 is the 45th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 320 days remaining, 321 in leap years.

Events

- 842 - Charles the Bald and Louis the German sign a treaty.
- 1014 - Pope Boniface I recognizes Henry of Bavaria as King of Germany.
- 1076 - Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1556 - Thomas Cranmer is declared a heretic.
- 1575 - Henry III of France marries Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont
- 1743 - Henry Pelham becomes British Prime Minister.
- 1779 - James Cook is killed by the natives of the Sandwich Islands.
- 1797 - John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent & Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson led the British Royal Navy to victory over a Spanish fleet in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent near Gibraltar.
- 1803 - Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of U.S. Congress which conflicts with the Constitution is void.
- 1804 - Karadjordje leads the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire.
- 1831 - Ras Marye of Yejju marches into Tigray and defeats and kills Dejazmach Sabagadis in the Battle of Debre Abbay.
- 1849 - In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first President of the United States to have his photograph taken.
- 1854 - Texas is linked by telegraph with the rest of the United States, when a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas is completed.
- 1859 - Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.
- 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone,as does Elisha Gray.
- 1879 - The War of the Pacific breaks out when Chilean armed forces occupy the Bolivian port city of Antofagasta.
- 1895 - First performance of Oscar Wilde's last play The Importance of Being Earnest at the St James's Theatre in London).
- 1899 - Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.
- 1900 - Russia responds to international pressure to free Finland by tightening imperial control over the country.
- 1900 - Second Boer War: In South Africa, 20,000 British troops invade the Orange Free State.
- 1903 - The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (later split into Dept. of Commerce and Dept. of Labor).
- 1912 - Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state.
- 1912 - In Groton, Connecticut, the first diesel-powered submarine is commissioned.
- 1918 - The movie Tarzan of the Apes is released.
- 1918 - The Soviet Union adopts the Gregorian calendar (1 February according to the Julian calendar).
- 1920 - The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago, Illinois.
- 1924 - IBM corporation founded.
- 1929 - St. Valentine's Day Massacre: Seven gangster rivals of Al Capone are murdered in Chicago, Illinois.
- 1943 - World War II:Rostov, Russia is liberated.
- 1943 - World War II: The Battle of the Kasserine Pass - German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia.
- 1944 - World War II: Anti-Japanese revolt on Java.
- 1945 - Bombing of Dresden in World War II: The British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force begin fire-bombing Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony.
- 1945 - Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru join the United Nations.
- 1945 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially starting the US-Saudi diplomatic relationship.
- 1946 - The Bank of England is nationalized.
- 1946 - ENIAC (for "Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer"), the first general-purpose electronic computer, is unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania.
- 1949 - The Knesset (Israeli parliament) first convenes.
- 1949 - The Asbestos Strike begins in Canada. The strike marks the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.
- 1952 - 1952 Winter Olympic Games open in Oslo, Norway.
- 1961 - Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized at the University of California.
- 1962 - First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.
- 1966 - Australian currency is decimalised.
- 1979 - In Kabul, Muslim extremists kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.
- 1980 - 1980 Winter Olympic Games open in Lake Placid, New York.
- 1980 - Walter Cronkite announces his retirement from CBS Evening News.
- 1985 - CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is freed from captivity in Lebanon.
- 1989 - Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal Disaster.
- 1989 - Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill the author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie.
- 1989 - The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System is placed into orbit.
- 1998 - Authorities in the United States announce that Eric Robert Rudolph is a suspect in an Alabama abortion clinic bombing.
- 2000 - The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker enters orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.
- 2002 - The Tullaghmurray Lass sinks off the coast of Kilkeel, County Down, Northern Ireland killing three members of the same family on board.
- 2004 - In a suburb of Moscow, Russia, the roof of the Transvaal water park collapses, killing more than 25 people, and wounding more than 100 others.
- 2005 - Lebanon's former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, is assassinated, prompting the Cedar Revolution (Intifada of Independence).

Births

- 1404 - Leone Battista Alberti, Italian painter, poet, and philosopher (d. 1472)
- 1483 - Zahir al-Din Mohammed Babur Shah, founder of the Moghul dynasty (d. 1530)
- 1602 - Francesco Cavalli, Italian composer (d. 1676)
- 1680 - John Sidney, 6th Earl of Leicester, English privy councillor (d. 1737)
- 1692 - Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée, French writer (d. 1754)
- 1701 - Enrique Florez, Spanish historian (d. 1773)
- 1763 - Jean Victor Marie Moreau, French general (d. 1813)
- 1766 - Thomas Malthus, English economist (d. 1834)
- 1812 - Alfred Thomas Agate, American artist (d. 1846)
- 1819 - Joshua A. Norton, Emperor Norton I of the United States of America and Protector of Mexico (d. 1880)
- 1847 - Anna Howard Shaw, American women's suffrage leader (d. 1919)
- 1848 - Benjamin Baillaud, French astronomer (d. 1934)
- 1856 - Frank Harris, Irish author and editor (d. 1931)
- 1869 - Charles Wilson, Scottish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1959)
- 1884 - Hezekiah M. Washburn, missionary (d. 1972)
- 1890 - Nina Hamnett, Welsh artist (d. 1956)
- 1894 - Jack Benny, American actor and comedian (d. 1974)
- 1895 - Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist (d. 1973)
- 1898 - Fritz Zwicky, Swiss-American physicist and astronomer (d. 1974)
- 1903 - Stu Erwin, American actor (d. 1967)
- 1905 - Thelma Ritter, American actress (d. 1969)
- 1912 - Tibor Sekelj, Croatian explorer (d. 1988)
- 1913 - Mel Allen, American sports reporter (d. 1996)
- 1913 - Woody Hayes, American college football coach (d. 1987)
- 1913 - Jimmy Hoffa, American labor union leader (disappeared 1975)
- 1916 - Masaki Kobayashi, Japanese director
- 1916 - Edward Platt, American actor (d. 1974)
- 1917 - Herbert A. Hauptman, American mathematician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- 1921 - Hugh Downs, American game show host
- 1927 - Lois Maxwell, Canadian actress
- 1929 - Vic Morrow, actor (d. 1982)
- 1931 - Brian Kelly, American actor (d. 2005)
- 1932 - Alexander Kluge, German actor and film director
- 1934 - Michel Corboz, Swiss conductor
- 1934 - Florence Henderson, American actress
- 1936 - Fanne Foxe, Argentine dancer
- 1936 - Andrew Prine, American actor
- 1941 - Donna Shalala, American politician, educator
- 1941 - Paul Tsongas, U.S. Senator (d. 1997)
- 1942 - Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City
- 1943 - Maceo Parker, American musician (P-Funk)
- 1944 - Carl Bernstein, American journalist
- 1944 - Alan Parker, British film director and writer
- 1945 - Frank Welker, American actor
- 1946 - Bernard Dowiyogo, President of Nauru (d. 2003)
- 1946 - Gregory Hines, American dancer and actor (d. 2003)
- 1948 - Pat O'Brien, American sportscaster and television host
- 1948 - Teller, American magician (Penn and Teller)
- 1959 - Renee Fleming, Canadian soprano
- 1960 - Jim Kelly, American football player
- 1960 - Meg Tilly, Canadian actress
- 1962 - Kevyn Aucoin, American cosmetologist
- 1963 - Enrico Colantoni, Canadian actor
- 1963 - Zach Galligan, American actor
- 1967 - Manuela Maleeva, Bulgarian tennis player
- 1968 - Jules Asner, American model and television personality
- 1970 - Simon Pegg, English comedian, writer, and actor
- 1971 - Noriko Sakai, Japanese singer
- 1972 - Drew Bledsoe, American football player
- 1972 - Rob Thomas, American musician (matchbox twenty)
- 1973 - Steve McNair, American football player
- 1978 - Richard Hamilton, American basketball player
- 1979 - Antonio Chatman, American football player
- 1980 - Fatima Leyva, Mexican footballer
- 1985 - Philippe Senderos, Swiss footballer
- 1992 - Freddie Highmore, British actor
- 1994 - Paul Butcher, actor from Zoey 101

Deaths

- 1317 - Marguerite of France, queen of Edward I of England (b. 1282)
- 1400 - King Richard II of England (murdered) (b. 1367)
- 1405 - Timur, Mongol conqueror (b. 1336)
- 1523 - Pope Adrian VI
- 1676 - Abraham Bosse, French engraver and artist
- 1737 - Charles Talbot, 1st Baron Talbot of Hensol, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1685)
- 1744 - John Hadley, inventor (b. 1682)
- 1779 - James Cook, British naval captain and explorer (b. 1728)
- 1780 - William Blackstone, English jurist (b. 1723)
- 1808 - John Dickinson, American lawyer and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention (b. 1732)
- 1831 - Vincente Guerrero, Mexican revolutionary hero (b. 1782)
- 1831 - Henry Maudslay, English inventor (b. 1771)
- 1929 - Tom Burke, American runner (b. 1875)
- 1943 - Dora Gerson, German actress, cabaret singer, and Holocaust victim (b. 1899)
- 1943 - David Hilbert, German mathematician (b. 1862)
- 1959 - Baby Dodds, American jazz drummer (b. 1898)
- 1969 - Vito Genovese, American gangster (b. 1897)
- 1970 - Herbert Strudwick, English cricketer (b. 1880).
- 1974 - Stewie Dempster, New Zealand cricketer (b. 1903)
- 1975 - Julian Huxley, British biologist (b. 1887)
- 1975 - P. G. Wodehouse, English writer (b. 1881)
- 1979 - Adolph Dubs, American diplomat (b. 1920)
- 1983 - Lina Radke, German athlete (b. 1903)
- 1987 - Dmitri Borisovich Kabalevsky, Russian composer (b. 1904)
- 1988 - Frederick Loewe, Austrian-American composer (b. 1901)
- 1989 - James Bond, American ornithologist (b. 1900)
- 1994 - Andrei Chikatilo, Russian serial killer (executed) (b. 1936)
- 1994 - Michael Gazzo, American actor (b. 1923)
- 1999 - John Ehrlichman, American presidential advisor (b. 1925)
- 2002 - Nándor Hidegkuti, Hungarian footballer (b. 1922)
- 2003 - Dolly the sheep, first cloned mammal (b. 1996)
- 2003 - Johnny Longden, English jockey (b. 1907)
- 2004 - Marco Pantani, Italian cyclist (b. 1970)
- 2005 - Najai Turpin, American boxer
- 2005 - Rafik Hariri, Lebanese politician and billionaire businessman (b. 1944)

Holidays and observances

- Denmark - Gaekkebrev - gift exchange by school kids
- Mexico - Day of National Mourning (1831)
- Arizona - Admission Day (1912)
- Oregon - Admission Day (1859)
- Western World - Valentine's Day
- Catholicism - Feast day of Saint Valentine
- Catholicism - Feast day of Saints Cyril and Methodius

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/14 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20050214.html The New York Times: On This Day] ---- February 13 - February 15 - January 14 - March 14 -- historical anniversaries ko:2월 14일 ms:14 Februari ja:2月14日 simple:February 14 th:14 กุมภาพันธ์

Kingdom of Great Britain

:This article is about the historical state called the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707-1800). For information about its modern successor state, see the main article: United Kingdom. :For other meanings of the terms "United Kingdom" and "UK" , see United Kingdom (disambiguation) and UK (disambiguation). :For an explanation of terms like England, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology). The Kingdom of Great Britain, also known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, was a state located in Western Europe, from 1707 to 1800. It was created by the merging of the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England under the Acts of Union 1707 to create a single kingdom encompassing the whole of the island of Great Britain. A new, single parliament and government, based in Westminster in London, controlled the new kingdom. The two former kingdoms had shared the same monarch since King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England in 1603. From 1707 onward, a joint "British" throne replaced the English and Scottish thrones and a joint Parliament of Great Britain replaced the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Scotland and England were given seats in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords of the new parliament. Although Scotland's representation in both houses was smaller than its population indicated it should have been, representation in parliament was at that time based not on population but on taxation, and Scotland was given a greater number of MPs than its share of taxation warranted. Under the terms of the union, Scotland elected forty-five members to the Commons and sent sixteen representative peers to the Lords. The Kingdom of Great Britain was superseded by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801 when the Kingdom of Ireland was absorbed with the enactment of the Act of Union following the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
Monarchs of Great Britain

- Anne (1707–1714), previously Queen of England, Queen of Scotland, and Queen of Ireland since 1702.
- George I (1714–1727)
- George II (1727–1760)
- George III (1760–1801), continued as King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until 1820.
See also

- Union Jack
- UK topics
- Style of the British Sovereign
Great Britain, United Kingdom of Great Britain, United Kingdom of Category:History of Great Britain British Isles (terminology) ja:グレートブリテン王国

Explorers

Exploration is the act of searching or traveling for the purpose of discovery, e.g. of unknown regions, including space (space exploration), or oil, gas, coal, ores, water (also known as prospecting), or information. Exploration has existed as long as human beings, but its peak is seen as being during the Age of Exploration when European navigators travelled around the world. In scientific research, exploration is one of three purposes of research (the other two being description and explanation). Exploration is the attempt to develop an initial, rough understanding of some phenomenon.

Main Explorers Since 1 AD

Erik the Red (950 - 1003) - Viking explorer. After being cast out from Greenland, he sailed to Newfoundland and settled. Marco Polo (1254 - 1324) - Italian explorer. John Cabot (c. 1450 - 1499) - Italian explorer. Discovered Newfoundland and claimed it for the Kingdom of England. Christopher Columbus (1451 - 1506) - Italian explorer. Sailed in 1492 and discovered the "New World" of the Americas. Juan Ponce de León (c. 1460 - 1521) - Spanish explorer. He explored Florida while vainly trying to find the Fountain of Youth. Vasco da Gama (c. 1469 - 1524) - Portuguese explorer. He sailed from Portugal to India to rounding the Cape of Good Hope. Vasco Núñez de Balboa (c. 1475 - 1519) - European Explorer. The first European to cross the Isthmus of Panama view the ocean from American shores. Francisco Pizarro (c. 1475 - 1541) - Spanish explorer. Conquered the Inca Empire. Ferdinand_Magellan (1480 - 1521) - Portuguese explorer. Sailed around Cape Horn and named Pacific Ocean. He died in the Philippines which he claimed for Spain but his ship made it back. Giovanni da Verrazano (c. 1485 - 1528) - Italian explorer. Explored the northeast coast, from Newfoundland to about present day South Carolina. Hernán Cortés (1485 - 1545) - Spanish explorer. Conquered the Aztec Empire for Spain. Hernando de Soto (c. 1496 - 1542) - Spanish explorer. Explored Florida, mainly northwest Florida, and discovered the Mississippi River. Francisco Vásquez de Coronado (c. 1510 - 1554) - Spanish explorer. Searched for the Seven Cities of Gold and discovered the Grand Canyon in the process. Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540 - 1596) - English explorer. The first Englishman to sail around the world and survive. Vitus Bering (1681 - 1741) - Danish explorer. Explored the Siberian Far West and Alaska and claimed it for Russia. James Cook (1728 - 1779) - English naval captain. Explored much of the Pacific including New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii. Robert Bartlett (1875 - 1946) - Newfoundland captain. Led over 40 expeditions to the Arctic, more than anyone before or since. Was the first to sail north of 88° N lattitude. Samuel_de_Champlain

Exploration by area

- Asian exploration
- Exploration of Asia
- Exploration of the Pacific
- African exploration
- Native American exploration
- American exploration
- Exploration of the Americas
- European exploration of Asia
- European exploration of Africa
- European exploration of Australia
- European exploration of North America
- Exploration of the High Alps
- Exploration of the moon
- Exploration of Mars

Cartographer

Cartography is the study of map making and cartographers are map makers.

Before 1400

- Dicaearchus (Greece, circa 350 B.C. - circa 285 B.C.), philosopher, cartographer, geographer, mathematician, author
- Hipparchus, (Greece, 190 B.C. - 120 B.C.), astronomer, cartographer, geographer
- Isidore of Seville (Spain, 560 - 636)
- Ptolemy, (Ptolemaic Egypt, Greece, circa 85 - circa 165), astronomer, cartographer, geographer'
- Al-Idrisi (Sicily, 1100-1166) Arab cartographer, geographer and traveller.

15th century

- Martin Behaim (Germany, 1436 – 1507)
- Erhard Etzlaub (1460 – 1532)
- Fra Mauro (Venice, c.1459)
- Sebastian Münster (Germany, 1488 – 1552)
- Piri Reis/Hadji Muhammad (Dardanelles, 1465 – 1554/1555)
- Hartmann Schedel (Germany, 1440 – 1514)
- Amerigo Vespucci (Italy, 1454 – 1512)
- Martin Waldseemüller (Germany, c.1470 – c.1521/1522)
- Johannes Werner (Germany, 1466 – 1528) refined and promoted the Werner map projection

16th century

- Philipp Apian (1531-1589)
- Willem Janszoon Blaeu (Netherlands, 1571 - 1638)
- Johannes Blaeu (Netherlands, 1596 - 1673)
- Gemma Frisius (or Reiner Gemma, 1508 - 1555)
- Martin Heilwig (Germany, 1516 - 1574)
- Jodocus Hondius, (Flanders, England, Netherlands, 1563 - 1612)
- Henricus Hondius (Netherlands, 1597 - 1651)
- Jan Janssonius (Netherlands, 1588 - 1664)
- Gerard de Jode (Flanders, 1509 - 1591)
- Gerardus Mercator (Flanders, Netherlands, 1512 - 1594)
- A. Matthäus Merian (Switzerland, 1593 - 1650)
- Pedro Nunes, (Portugal, 1502 - 1578)
- Abraham Ortelius, (Flanders, 1527 - 1598)
- Petrus Plancius, (Netherlands, (1552 - 1622)
- John Speed, (England, 1542 - 1629)

17th century

- Giambattista (Giovanni Battista) Albrizzi (Venice, 1698 – 1777), publisher of illustrated books and maps
- Vincenzo Coronelli (1650 – 1718)
- Guillaume Delisle (1675 – 1726), cartographer
- Johann Homann (Germany, 1664 – 1724), geographer
- Johannes van Keulen, cartographer, founder of Firm of Van Keulen
- Matthäus Merian (Switzerland, 1621 – 1687)
- Nicolas Sanson (France, 1600 – 1667)
- Peter Schenk (1660 – 1718/1719)
- Friedrich Wilhelm Karl von Schmettau (died 1743)
- Matthias Seutter (1678 – 1757)
- Alain Manesson Mallet (1630 – 1706)

18th century

- Thomas Jefferys (c. 1710 - 1771) Geographer of King George III of the United Kingdom
- Johann Friedrich Endersch (Germany, fl. 1755)
- Colonel Robert Erskine (1735 - 1780) Geographer and Surveyor-General of the Continental Army during the American Revolution.
- John Rocque (England, 1709 - 1762)
- Simeon De Witt (1756 - 1834) Successor to Robert Erskine and Surveyor-General of the State of New York
- Thomas Richardson - Scottish

19th century

- George Bradshaw (1801 - 1853)
- Carl Diercke (1842 - 1913)
- Paul Diercke (1874 - 1937)
- Max Eckert-Greifendorff (1868 - 1938)
- Hermann Haack (1872 - 1966)
- Charles F. Hoffmann
- Eduard Imhof (1895 - 1986)
- Peter Kozler (Slovenia, 1824 - 1879), lawyer, geographer, politician, manufacturer.
- Thomas Moule (England, 1784 - 1851)
- Nicolas Auguste Tissot (France)
- Philippe Vandermaelen (Belgium, 1795 - 1869)

20th century

- Erik Arnberger (1917 - 1987)
- Jacques Bertin (1918- )
- Roger Brunet (1931- )
- Günther Hake (1922 - 2000)
- George F. Jenks (1916 - 1996)
- Edgar Lehmann (1905 - 1990)
- Rudi Ogrissek (1926 - 1999)
- Erwin Raisz (1893 - 1968)
- Arthur H. Robinson (1915 - 2004)
- John C. Sherman (1916 - 1996)
- Waldo R. Tobler (1930- )

21st century

- Mike Reagan

Cartography organizations

- [http://www.cartography.org.uk/ British Cartographic Society]
- [http://www.soc.org.uk/ Society of Cartographers]
- NACIS [http://www.nacis.org/ North American Cartographic Information Society]
- [http://www.cartography.ch/ Swiss Society of Cartography]
- Ordnance Survey (United Kingdom) Cartographers List of Cartographers

Map

] A map is a simplified depiction of a space, a navigational aid which highlights relations between objects within that space. Most usually a map is a two-dimensional, geometrically accurate representation of a three-dimensional space. The science and art of map-making is cartography.

Introduction

Map-making dates back to the Stone Age and appears to predate written language by several millennia. One of the oldest surviving maps is painted on a wall of the Catal Huyuk settlement in south-central Anatolia (now Turkey); it dates from about 6200 BC. Harvey 2000, p. 142]. While we tend to think of maps today as products of a rationalistic, scientific world-view, maps also have a mythic quality. Pre-modern maps, and mapping traditions outside the Western tradition, often merge geography with non-scientific cosmography, showing the relationship of the viewer to the universe. Medieval "T-O" maps, for example, show Jerusalem at the centre of the world, and in some cases related the "body" of the Earth to the body of Christ. By contrast, navigational (or "Portolan") charts of the Mediterranean from the same period are remarkably accurate. Even today, maps can be powerful rhetorical tools beyond their purely practical value, and this has been the source of much fruitful map criticism over the last twenty years, notably in the works of J.B. Harley, Mark Monmonier, and Denis Wood. Because maps are abstract representations of the world, they are not neutral documents and must be carefully interpreted. It is, of course, this abstraction that makes them useful. Lewis Carroll made this point humorously in Sylvie and Bruno with his mention of a fictional map that had "the scale of a mile to the mile". A character notes some practical difficulties with this map and states that "we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well". This conceit is elaborated in a one-paragraph story by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares, generally known in English as "On Exactitude in Science". Road maps are perhaps the most widely used maps today, and form a subset of navigational maps, which also include aeronautical and nautical charts, railroad network maps, and hiking and bicycling maps. Community maps, including [http://GreenMap.org GreenMaps], are growing in importance. In terms of quantity, the largest number of drawn map sheets is probably made up by local surveys, carried out by municipalities, utilities, tax assessors, emergency services providers, and other local agencies. Many national surveying projects have been carried out by the military, such as the British Ordnance Survey (now a civilian government agency internationally renowned for its comprehensively detailed work).

Orientation of maps

Ordnance Survey, England. A classic "T-O" map with Jerusalem at centre, east toward the top, Europe the bottom left and Africa on the right.]] Conventionally, on most geometrically accurate maps text is upright when the map is oriented with the north up, hence north is identified with the top of a sheet. Maps that don't put north at the top: #Polar maps #Dymaxion maps # Some rectangular maps produced in Australia show the south pole at the top. To someone used to seeing the map the other way around, this map may appear to be "upside down". These are primarily intended as novelty and tourist maps. # Other modern maps put south on top, generally either out of a sense of playful confusion or to make a political statement about the North-South divide. # Old maps of Edo show the Japanese imperial palace as the "top," but also at the centre, of the map. Labels on the map are oriented in such a way that you cannot read them properly unless you put the imperial palace above your head. # Medieval European T and O maps such as the Hereford Mappa Mundi were centred on Jerusalem, with East at the top. If a person is located at an identifiable point within the area of such a map, then the map can be oriented in such a way that every point on the map lies in the same direction as the corresponding point in reality. The practice of navigating in this way is orienteering. For a vertically positioned map representing a horizontal area true orientation is not possible, of course, but it is sometimes approximated by putting the forward direction up. Occasionally a map is on a ceiling, correctly showing directions; in that case, looking up we have in clockwise direction forward, left, backward, and right. If the map is prepared on a table, to be attached to the ceiling, then on the table it is a mirror image of a normal map.

Scale and accuracy

Many but not all maps are drawn to a scale, allowing the reader to infer the actual sizes of, and distances between, depicted objects. A larger scale shows more detail, thus requiring a larger map to show the same area. For example, maps designed for the hiker are often scaled at the ratio 1:24,000, meaning that 1 of any unit of measurement on the map corresponds to 24,000 of that same unit in reality; while maps designed for the motorist are often scaled at 1:250,000. Maps which use some quality other than physical area to determine relative size are called cartograms. A famous example of a map without scale is the London Underground map, which best fulfils its purpose by being less physically accurate and more visually communicative to the hurried glance of the commuter. This is not a cartogram (since there is no consistent measure of distance) but a topological map that also depicts approximate bearings. The simple maps shown on some directional road signs are further examples of this kind. In fact, most commercial navigational maps, such as road maps and town plans, sacrifice an amount of accuracy in scale to deliver a greater visual usefulness to its user, for example by exaggerating the width of roads. With the end-user similarly in mind, cartographers will censor the content of the space depicted by a map in order provide a useful tool to that user. For example, a road map may or may not show railroads, and if it does, it may show them less clearly than highways.

World maps and projections

highways Maps of the world or large areas are often either 'political' or 'physical'. The most important purpose of the political map is to show territorial borders; the purpose of the physical is to show features of geography such as mountains, soil type or land use. Geological maps show not only the physical surface, but characteristics of the underlying rock, fault lines, and subsurface structures. Maps that depict the surface of the Earth also use a projection, a way of translating the three-dimensional real surface of the geoid to a two-dimensional picture. Perhaps the best-known world-map projection is the Mercator Projection, originally designed as a form of nautical chart. Airplane pilots use aeronautical charts based on a Lambert conformal conic projection, in which a cone is laid over the section of the earth to be mapped. The cone intersects the sphere (the earth) at one or two parallels which are chosen as standard lines. This allows the pilots to plot a great-circle route approximation on a flat, two-dimensional chart.

Electronic maps

Lambert conformal conic projection.]] Lambert conformal conic projection service called http://www.metrokc.gov/gis/mapportal/mapsets.htm I.map Map Sets]] From the last quarter of the 20th century, the indispensable tool of the cartographer has been the computer. Much of cartography, especially at the data-gathering survey level, has been subsumed by Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Even when GIS is not involved, most cartographers now use a variety of computer graphics programs to generate new maps. Interactive, computerised maps are commercially available, allowing users to zoom in or zoom out (respectively meaning to increase or decrease the scale), sometimes by replacing one map with another of different scale, centred where possible on the same point. In-car satellite navigation systems are computerised maps with route-planning and advice facilities which monitor by satellite the position of the user. From the computer scientist's standpoint, zooming in entails one or a combination of: #replacing the map by a more detailed one #enlarging the same map without enlarging the pixels, hence show more detail #enlarging the same map with the pixels enlarged (replaced by rectangles of pixels); no additional detail is shown, but, depending on the quality of one's vision, possibly more detail can be seen; if a computer display does not show adjacent pixels really separate, but overlapping instead (this does not apply for an LCD, but may apply for a cathode ray tube), then replacing a pixel by a rectangle of pixels does show more detail. A variation of this method is that interpolation is performed. For example:
- Typically (2) applies to a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The increase in detail is, of course, limited to the information contained in the file: enlargement of a curve may eventually result in a series of standard geometric figures such as straight lines or arcs of circles.
- (2) may apply to text and (3) to the outline of a map feature such as a forest or building.
- (1) may apply to the text (displaying labels for more features), while (2) applies to the rest of the image. Text is not necessarily enlarged when zooming in. Similarly, a road represented by a double line may or may not become wider when one zooms in.
- The map may also have layers which are partly raster graphics and partly vector graphics. For a single raster graphics image (2) applies until the pixels in the image file correspond to the pixels of the display, thereafter (3) applies. The word "map" has also been used to describe places within video games, such as SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs and Counter-Strike, that players choose to compete on, as a synonym for level. See also Webpage (Graphics), PDF (Layers), Mapquest, or Yahoo! Maps.

References

- David Buisseret, ed., Monarchs, Ministers and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography as a Tool of Government in Early Modern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992, [ISBN 0226079872]
- Miles Harvey, The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime. New York : Random House, 2000. [ISBN 0767908260, cited above; also ISBN 0375501517]
- Mark Monmonier, How to Lie with Maps, [ISBN 0226534219]
- O'Connor, J.J. and E.F. Robertson, [http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Cartography.html The History of Cartography]. Scotland : St. Andrews University, 2002. http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Cartography.htm