Captain Cook

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Part 1: Captain James Cook, commonly abbreviated as Captain Cook, was a navigator, explorer, cartographer and captain for the Royal Navy from approximately 1747 to 1779, when he was stabbed to death by villagers in Hawaii while trying to take hostage the king (Collingridge, 2002). Born in 1728 (Myplace.edu.au, 2014), James was one of James Cook and his mother, Grace Pace's eight children (Rigby and Merwe, 2002). When he was around 17 years old, he moved to Witby where he was taken in as a merchant navy apprenticeship (Horwitz, 2003). He then worked his way up the Navy, until he earned the name of Captain James Cook. Part 2: Cook’s first voyage had two objectives. What objectives and were they fulfilled? The first of the two objectives was to observe the transit of Venus, and the second was to find evidence of the existence of Terra Australis Incognita, the name given to the land on which Australia occupies nowadays, before it was colonised. The viewing of the transit of Venus was to be recorded in four stages. The first of which was when Venus' figure made contact with the figure of the sun. The second was when Venus' figure was completely inside the suns figure, but still touching the edge. The third was when Venus' figure was still inside the suns figure, but touching the other side. Finally the last stage was when Venus' figure was completely outside the suns figure, but still touching the rim. The observation of the transit of Venus was successfully completed, with a clear sky and observations being recorded by 3 different observers (James Cook, Charles Green and Daniel Solander). The event was viewed by the explorers on the island of Tahiti (Rienits and Rienits, 1976). The second objective as stated was to find evidence of ...

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...different towns. James was born in Marton, which is now called Middlesborough, in Yorkshire. But Matthew was born in Donington, Lincolnshire. Overall, Captain James Cook and Captain Matthew Flinders were similar in terms of their origins and their expertise in the workforce, but in the end they gave different contributions to the Royal Navy.

Part 3:
When James Cook discovered the mysterious Southern Land existed, it spawned many more voyages to Australia. Including that of Captain Matthew Flinders, mentioned earlier in this report, that resulted in the entirety of Australia being mapped. This allowed for Australia’s land to be used for storage of convicts, relieving the burden of masses of criminals on the justice system in England. Overall, the discovery of improved the criminal justice system in that period of time, then leading onto a new nation being created.

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