Short History Of... - Captain Cook

Episode Date: July 20, 2025

Through his voyages in the eighteenth century, Captain Cook’s work as an explorer contributed to startling advances in scientific knowledge, and mapped swathes of unplotted territory in both hemispheres.   To many, he was regarded as one of the greatest explorers in human history, while for others, his achievements were overshadowed by the violence and oppression that accompanied his voyages.   So, how did a farm-worker’s son rise to become one of the most celebrated explorers in history? Why did his voyages become so legendary? And at what price - to Cook personally, and those whose lands he charted?   This is a Short History Of Captain Cook.   A Noiser Production. Written by Dan Smith. With thanks to Katherine Gazzard, Curator of Art at Royal Museums Greenwich.   Get every episode of Short History Of... a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's 1746 in the small fishing village of Steers in the north of England. Evening is drawing in and a tall, muscular lad stands behind the counter in the shop where he works. He exchanges pleasantries with a lady who drops a few coins into his hand to pay for a side of bacon. The shop's heavy door shuts behind her, and he comes around the counter to snuff out the lamps and close up for the night. Though his straw mattress tucked under the counter looks inviting,

and he is weary after a long shift. He has no intention of going to bed yet. Instead, he steps out of the shop and locks the door. The screech of gulls fills his ears, and he smells the aroma of fish from the day's catch carrying on the salty air. salty air. He walks along the cobbled waterfront, listening to the familiar lapping of the tide as it breaks around the boats moored up for the night. Soon he arrives at an inn. As he crosses its threshold, the peace of the world outside gives way to chatter and laughter. The smell of the sea is replaced by the stench of beer and tobacco.

Smoke eddies towards the ceiling from a sea of clay pipes. He knows he is not one of them, spending his days safe in the shop while these men risk their lives on the waves. But he is drawn to them, their community united by hard work and the facing of daily dangers. And as one of the men plants a hefty hand on his shoulder, ushering him towards the bar where a frothing tankard awaits, he knows he is welcomed among them. He drinks his ale while one of the fishermen he knows well regales him about a recent near-miss when he was caught out in a sudden squall.

The boy strains to hear the details as another group enthusiastically sing sea shanties, but the saga grips him. A drama with life and death stakes. The sea is dangerous, certainly, but it is a source of adventure, too. A chance for a man to prove himself and escape the confines of the land. To explore what lies beyond. Selling a side of bacon to the old lady of the hill simply doesn't compete. And so the idea of joining these men out in their boats seizes him.

Quite how he'll manage it is still uncertain. The idea of joining these men out in their boats seizes him. Quite how he'll manage it is still uncertain, but this teenager, James Cook, is nothing if not determined. In fact, his ambition will ultimately change not only his own fortunes, but also the fate of his nation and the lives of millions more around the globe. In his three major voyages in the 18th century, Captain James Cook's work as an explorer contributed to startling advances in scientific knowledge and mapped swathes of previously unplotted territory in both hemispheres.

He secured vast new possessions in the Pacific for the burgeoning British Empire and helped to solve navigational riddles that had baffled explorers and researchers for centuries. But to many, his achievements are overshadowed by the violence that accompanied his encounters with indigenous populations, and the widespread oppression that came with the colonial expansion in which he played such a pioneering role.

So how did a farmworker's son from a small northern English village rise to be regarded as one of the greatest explorers in human history. Why did his voyages become so legendary? And at what price to Cook personally and to those whose lands he charted? I'm John Hopkins from the Noiza Network. This is a short history of Captain Cook. Though James Cook will one day become known the world over as a seafarer, in his early years his feet and those of his family stay firmly on solid ground.

As a boy growing up in the small Yorkshire hamlet of Martin, he spends his days helping his father, a Scotsman, who works as a farm labourer. But before he's ten, the family are on the move to a nearby village where his father has been made a bailiff, carrying out duties for the Lord of the Manor. Catherine Gazzard is a curator of art at Royal Museums Greenwich and has studied Cook's life closely. It's a bit of a cliché, but one of the things he definitely takes from his early life in North Yorkshire is the value of hard work. Sort of in these labouring rural communities, that's what he sees around him and that's what he takes. But it's also important to remember that his father, who's a farm labourer, is something so itinerant and kind of moves from place to place in search of work.

And in particular, the family uproots from the village of Martin, where Cook is born, to Great Ait and another village. And you wonder kind of the impact that that has on Cook. You know, it's not necessarily to kind of stay in one place and perhaps it opens his eyes to think about what opportunities might be out there. to think about what opportunities might be out there. James attends school and in 1745 is apprenticed to the shop of a man named William Sanderson, some 15 miles away.

He proves capable and popular, but falls out with Sanderson over a coin that a customer has used as payment, one that's been minted for the government-backed South Sea Company. According to Cook, he merely substitutes it with a run-of-the-mill coin of equivalent value from his own pocket, but Sanderson initially sees it as a simple theft. By the time he accepts the apprentice's explanation, the damage has been done. Cook leaves his post.

After all, he has his eye on a new career. It's so tempting to imagine him in William Sanderson's haberdashery shop where he's working, staring out the window at the boats off the coast, the fishing vessels, and imagining a kind of romantic life adventure at sea. But of course, the thing we know about Cook is he is also a very pragmatic and sensible and logical man. So I think it's possible he's kind of drawn to the sea as much because it's a good opportunity. Despite their falling out, Sanderson does his best to help Cook and secures the lad a place as an apprentice seaman in Whitby,

a port town on the Yorkshire coast. The town is a major centre of coal transportation, distributing the fuel from the mines of the north throughout England and beyond. While training on a particular type of sturdy boat known as a cat, he also attends an apprentice's school in the town. So there are sort of over a thousand other apprentices registered at the same time Cook is registered. And so that means it's a real centre for training. It's where he can gain the skills in navigation and seamanship, his really technical skills. And he certainly proves very talented at it. There's anecdotal stories of the housekeeper in the house where he stays in Whitby saving all

the old candle ends so he can stay up late at night reading while all the other apprentices are off having a good time. So he's very dedicated. And it pays off and he quickly moves through the ranks. In between hauling coal, often to the capital, he works for the government, transporting foreign mercenaries and their horses from the low countries back to England and on to Ireland. In 1752, he has passed all the exams to become a mate, a junior officer. Three years later, still aged only 27, he is offered command of a cat of his own.

But he is already looking further afield. Up in Whitby, he is far removed from the beating political heart of the country. But on his trips to and from London, there is no mistaking that there is something in the air. Britain has been busy building its imperial interests in the Americas and the Caribbean for many years. But that has set the nation at odds with its neighbors. In particular, France, its old enemy. As the two vie for territory, rumors of war intensify.

And it's against this backdrop that, in June 1755, Cook stands in a queue on the dockside at Wapping in East London, ready to join the Royal Navy. Going into the Royal Navy is kind of, in many ways, taking a step backwards, because he has to start once again at the bottom of the naval hierarchy, of lowly able seamen, work his way up to those more senior positions, so do what he'd just done in the merchant service all over again. But he knows that with the benefit of the skills he's gained in the merchant service, he's going to make that journey quicker. And there's also going to be opportunities in the Navy because war is on the horizon.

Soon he is in Portsmouth on the south coast, where he is attached to HMS Eagle. But though its captain, Joseph Hamar, complains that his poor quality crew make the Eagle the worst manned ship in the fleet, Cook's abilities shine through. Within a month he is promoted to Master's Mate, the equivalent rank to his old one in the Merchant Navy. And Hamar's replacement, Captain Hugh Palliser also marks Cook out as a special talent. Atronage is another thing that really helps Cook and it's really important in the Royal Navy having a senior commander who will vouch for you, who will sponsor

you, who will put you forward for opportunities is really important in the Navy and Cook has that as well in Hugh Palliser. One gusty night in November, the Eagle is patrolling the Channel. There Cook encounters a French naval vessel, evidently damaged from its recent exploits in the Atlantic. Under a barrage of British cannon fire, it catches ablaze and sinks. But not before the Eagle takes on board 26 prisoners. It hasn't been much of a contest, but Cook has fought his first naval battle. Promoted again, he is assigned to a new vessel, HMS Pembroke, and heads to Plymouth, ready to cross the Atlantic. In February 1758, the Pembroke heads out for the Hudson River in what is now Canada.

The aim is to wrestle control of the river and other strategic positions from the French, undermining their dominance in the area. The voyage is long and the weather bad, and soon the men are hit by the scourge of scurvy. Cook watches its grim symptoms take hold of victim after victim, their gums rot and teeth fall out, their skin blotches and some bleed from multiple orifices. It takes a toll on their psychological well-being too, with extreme homesickness and overwhelming lethargy. By the time Pembroke docks at Halifax in North America, 26 men have perished and many more

show symptoms. The plan is to join the rest of the British fleet, over 150 vessels, in their advance on a French river-fort. But by the time enough men have recovered and the Pembroke catches up, the battle is in full swing. Cook helps mop up a few of the enemy and soon the French surrender. But it is now October, and British plans to take the next big prize, Quebec, are put on hold as winter sets in. It does at least give Cook the opportunity to hone some new skills.

He goes ashore shortly afterwards and meets this military surveyor called Samuel Holland, who's there with a plane table, which is an instrument that was used a lot in land surveying, but it's something Cook's not familiar with, it's not really used in marine contexts. The tripod, you've got a kind of sight and you can use it for plotting out the lay of the land. And so he gets talking to Holland about it and Cook convinces the captain of his ship to let him work with Holland. The pair set to work on a detailed survey of the St. Lawrence River. It gives the British a crucial advantage as they make their advance on Quebec in 1759. But sailing into the basin below the city, Cook faces a terrifying sight. The cornered French have launched a series of burning rafts towards the British.

Cook orders the launch of several small boats, which, with the help of grappling irons, somehow manage to divert the blazing vessels before they can do too much harm. Soon after, Quebec falls. It's late 1762 before Cook finds himself back in England. Taking lodgings in East London, he meets a 22-year-old woman named Elizabeth Bants. She is handsome and smart, and the pair hit it off straight away. But as a naval officer, Cook is aware that time is against him. The sea beckons, and he will be gone again in a few weeks.

Although they hardly know each other, before the year is out they are married. It's hard not to think about Cook's wife Elizabeth without being filled with I think both admiration and also a lot of sympathy. Her father was the keeper of a dockside inn in London, and so she'd grown up around seafaring communities and would have seen the lives of a lot of seafaring wives who they kind of left on their own for long periods while their husbands were away at sea, and in that time had to take charge of the family's financial and legal affairs, whilst also running the house and going through the sort of stresses, strains and traumas of pregnancy and childbirth and childrearing.

It's around now that the British government is finalizing plans for a comprehensive survey of Newfoundland back in North America. Cook is hand-picked for the job. With the coast of the region stretching 6,000 miles, it is an immense undertaking and occupies Cook on and off until early 1768. By now, Elizabeth has given birth to three children, two sons and a daughter. She is pregnant again as her husband prepares for yet another season overseas. But he never makes that journey. A different challenge, the one that will write his name into history, is brewing. The Royal Society, England's foremost academy of sciences,

has recently been working on a joint project with the Royal Navy. The plan is to plot the transit of Venus as it crosses the Sun. It's an event that occurs twice in an eight-year cycle, after which there is a wait of 121.5 years before the pattern is repeated. The theory goes that by measuring the transit from various points around the globe, it should be possible to calculate the distance between the Sun and the Earth, an astronomical measurement that would vastly increase scientific understanding of the solar system. The last transit occurred almost eight years ago, but attempts to track it with sufficient

accuracy failed. A second opportunity is fast approaching before that long gap of over a century till the next transit. One suitable location for tracking it has been identified as Tahiti, a remote island in the Pacific Ocean. But finding a suitable candidate who can both carry out the necessary scientific observations and successfully lead a voyage there is tricky. Now Cook comes into contention. Cook is someone who definitely has a lot of intellectual curiosity. And while we'd say probably that surveying and maritime navigation are his primary areas of expertise, he's always kind of interested in other areas of scientific investigation.

So actually when he's in Newfoundland making maps of the coast, he observes a solar eclipse in 1766 and writes up his findings and those get presented to the Royal Society. So he's already kind of known to the Royal Society and known in those scientific circles. The problem is Cook is not a captain. Though he has certainly demonstrated the requisite skills, the rank is normally reserved for those of higher birth than a farm laborer's son.

Luckily, the Royal Navy does have this reputation for allowing a degree of social mobility, and it was possible to become a commissioned officer by passing an exam on technical skills and by demonstrating you had a sufficient level of experience at sea. by demonstrating you had a sufficient level of experience at sea. Cook is made a lieutenant and is duly appointed head of the Tahiti expedition. An enormous achievement for a working-class boy. Cook sails out of Plymouth on the 26th of August 1768. Around the same time, back in London, Elizabeth gives birth to a son.

Although the sickly child will only survive a few weeks. Cook's ship is the Endeavour. A 368 ton converted collier, it is 105 feet long and constructed from oak, elm, and pine. And of the same shallowed hull design that he used to sail out of Whitby. After all, this is something of a mission into the unknown, with no guarantee of convenient deep water harbors at the other end. And it is crammed full. As a collier, it might have carried a crew of twelve or fifteen,

but Cook has charge of almost a hundred men. The interior is divided into two decks, one for the crew working the ship and keeping it in good order, and the other a little more spacious and accommodating for the officers and various scientific personnel on board, as well as a team of artists to keep a visual record. as well as a team of artists to keep a visual record. The men are accompanied by chickens, sheep and pigs, as well as a goat, the unofficial mascot of the ship, and a reliable source of fresh milk. Life is tough for everyone in the cramped conditions,

but Cook is determined that at least his men's bellies should be full, even if the menu is, whilst at sea, uninspiring. A monotonous round of bread and weevil-ridden ship's biscuits, porridge and watery stews with meat served only every other day. The weeks pass, and as on many long journeys, claustrophobia and boredom sometimes get the better of the crew. When a man does step out of line, Cook thinks nothing of having him flogged.

But mostly, he commands respect for his fairness. He is king on the ship, but he rules thoughtfully and it buys him goodwill. Endeavour makes steady progress, arriving at Rio de Janeiro in November. From there it passes Cape Horn at the southern tip of the Americas and onwards to Tahiti, arriving in April 1769. In the several weeks before the transit of Venus, expected in June, Cook's men explore the island. The onboard naturalist Joseph Banks takes the opportunity to collect an array of natural specimens, which he diligently records in journals that he hopes will one day make him famous.

Though the explorers struggle to deal with the tropical insects, they find the island's indigenous people welcoming, at least to begin with. They establish a healthy trade. The locals particularly keen on the iron nails the visitors offer in exchange for local goods. Cook notes the cordial relations in his journals, although there is no record from the islanders as to what they really feel about the interlopers. There are certainly points of tension. Cook becomes irritated by instances of theft by the Tahitian natives. Not least a piece of equipment vital to measuring the transit,

although it is soon recovered. He, however, is happy to oversee the extraction of natural resources from the island that the locals might equally regard as thievery. Though seeking intimacy with local women is tolerated by the captain, when one of his crew insults a local's wife, Cook has the offender lashed. He pursues cultural exchange, for instance, watching a local funeral ceremony and inviting the Tahitians to witness a Christian religious service performed by the ship's surgeon. Cook and his crew are assimilating crucial knowledge about an unfamiliar people, conducting

an anthropological investigation, but one in which the visitors habitually assume an air of inherent superiority. Before long, Cook and the Voyage's scientific team construct a temporary observatory and prepare for the transit. At about quarter past seven in the evening of the 3rd of June, 1769, Venus begins its journey across the face of the Sun. A process that takes several hours. But when the team comes together in the early hours to compare their data, they realise they have different results from each other. The reason for this is because of the optical distortions that happen around the edges of the Sun, which made it really difficult for them to isolate the specific moment

when the transit began and when the transit ended. In fact, teams around the world are reporting similar discrepancies. But though their collected data will turn out to be sufficient to calculate the distance between the sun and the Earth with a remarkable degree of accuracy, Cook does not yet know that. As far as he is concerned, he's failed at the task he has come here to do. Alone in his cabin, he sits at his desk, a sealed document in front of him. It's from his navy bosses, delivered with instructions

that it should not be opened until now. He breaks the seal, spreads out the document, and begins to read. It turns out that he won't be heading home just yet, and that he has a chance of redemption. For centuries, scientists have speculated that the land-heavy northern hemisphere must be counterbalanced by a vast continent in the south, a landmass known as Terra Australis, the southern land. A recent British mariner has tried and failed to find it, and the document

in front of Cook explains that he must now lead the hunt. The Admiralty is very clear in its orders to Cook that these are missions that are designed to serve Britain's military and commercial interests. The British are still worried about the French because the French have also been sending voyages to the Pacific. Particularly as the French have, in the Seven Years' War, lost territory to the British in North America. They're looking for alternative territories elsewhere. So in this arms race of colonial expansion, the British want to make sure that they are still keeping ahead of the French. Endeavour leaves Tahiti in mid-July with two new crew, a local servant boy and a man named Tupaya, a local priest and

leader who is also a skillful navigator. Cook visits some nearby islands which he claims for George II and names the Society Islands, possibly after his sponsors, the Royal Society. Then the voyage plows onwards. Weeks pass without sight of land. Then one day, an excited cry from a young lad in the crew. There ahead, land. But it's quickly apparent that this is not the vast,

undiscovered continent he is questing after. Instead, Cook has arrived at the North Island of what will come to be known as New Zealand. Over the coming months, he leads a circumnavigation of both this island and its southern counterpart. Though the Dutch mariner Abel Tasman sailed here back in 1642, Cook is the first European to lead a thorough exploration, mapping the land as he goes. He makes contact with the native Polynesian people, the Maori, who settled here back in the 13th century.

But it's a violent introduction. 130 years since last seeing a European in these parts, the Maori tribes people with their distinctive tattoos are naturally trepidatious of visitors. And as the sight of the new arrivals draws them to shore, confusion reigns. A few make a ceremonial challenge, asserting their primacy here, when a musket shot rings out from somewhere amid Cook's nervy party. One of the Maori collapses to the ground, mortally wounded.

In the coming days there are further skirmishes, and in all eight Maori are killed. An ignominious start to the European presence in the region. There are, though, more peaceable moments too, aided by Cook's Tahitian right-hand man. Tupaya kind of acts as an interpreter. There's actually a drawing that's done by Tupaya acts as an interpreter. There's actually a drawing that's done by Tupaya of an exchange between a Māori man and a European. It's thought possibly Joseph Banks, where the Māori man is offering a crayfish in exchange for the object the European is offering.

And it's thought that what the European is offering is tapir cloths, a bark cloth from Tahiti. And it's really interesting thinking about this exchange from Tupaya's perspective. I mean, it's thought that one of the reasons Tupaya travels with Cook is to sort of retrace some of the voyages that he might have made himself at an earlier point in his life, and also to honour a sort of really long tradition of voyaging and connecting across the Pacific. And so what Tupaya is seeing in this moment from Cook's voyage is Maori man

receiving cloth from Tahiti. And so this kind of meeting of Pacific cultures, you know, is being recorded by Tupaya. In that context, Cook and the European voyagers are just kind of facilitators for this connection within a much longer Pacific history. In March, Cook leaves New Zealand to head westwards until, on the 19th of April, the east coast of Australia, or New Holland as it is known for now, appears on the horizon. Although Dutch explorers have already made it to its north, south and western coasts, Cook is the first European to record its east coast.

And while it's certainly large, it's already been deemed too small to be the fabled southern continent they've been looking for. A few days later he notes in his journal his first sighting of Aboriginal Australians, and on the 29th of April he docks his fleet in a beautiful natural harbour that he names Botany Bay. Their arrival, however, is not well received by the local community, and in a standoff one of the native people is shot and killed. Shrugging off the hostility, Cook and his men spend a week investigating the area, collecting samples of flora and fauna for scientific examination,

as well as fresh water and timber for the next stage of their voyage. Joseph Banks, meanwhile, notes the location as a suitable place for potential future British settlement. But as they head back on board, they go northwards up the coast, mapping the coastline and naming its landmarks. It is the tenth of June, a clear moonlit evening. The breeze sufficient to see Endeavor make good pace, but something looms in the distance.

Wiping sea spray from his brow, Cook squints for a better view. Two islands, he thinks, rising from the depths, an obstacle to be avoided at all costs. The waters are perilous around here, with the depth fluctuating dramatically, sometimes comfortingly deep, the next moment worryingly shallow. He knows Endeavour is designed to cope with such water, but still shallow seas often harbor the biggest threats. He orders all hands on deck, his crew working the sails to ensure the vessel stays on a safe course.

After a while, the worst of the danger seems past, so he sends some of the men off to rest up so they're ready for the challenges of tomorrow. It's just before eleven with a calm atmosphere on deck when suddenly Endeavour comes to a juddering halt. Cook cringes at the unmistakable crack of splintering wood. Those islands he saw are part of a much bigger structure, a vast reef of coral that will come to be called the Great Barrier Reef. But for now, all that concerns Cook

is that his ship is stuck fast on it. Any man not already joining the effort is urgently summoned. But with every attempt to move the ship, she seems only to become wedged more firmly, the gash in the hull getting bigger and swallowing more water. There is a serious danger that she might go down.

The only option left is to lighten the load. On Cook's orders, the crew heave the ship's guns into the water, along with great wooden casks, jars of oil, anything that is heavy and not immediately vital to life. The sea spits up great plumes of water as each new item comes crashing down. Cook does not permit his men to stop until they are perhaps 40 tons lighter. All the while, down in the hold, more crew

operate the bilge pumps, handles winding and pistons spluttering as they work to drain the ship quicker than it can fill. But finally, with the hold still swimming with three and a half feet of water, Endeavour at last rises above the reef and is set free. Cook eases his limping vessel away from immediate danger before beaching her near what will come to be known as Cook's town on the Queensland coast. It takes seven weeks to complete the repairs. In that time, the crew explore the area, making contact with the local Aboriginal people.

For the most part, it's affable until a dispute over some turtles Cook's men have captured turns violent. Another local suffers a gunshot wound. This pattern of sporadic violence persists as Cook continues his tour of the East Coast. Towards the end of August, he reaches the northern extent of the coastline, before turning westwards through the treacherous Torres Strait. From a high vantage point on what he names Possession Island, he surveys the expansive ocean before him and claims the entirety of Australia's eastern coastline for Great Britain. Cook was advised by the president of the Royal Society that no European nation has the right to occupy territory without the voluntary consent of the indigenous people who live

there. But given the difficulties in communication without a shared language and the evident tensions that exist, it seems Cook has interpreted the advice liberally, to say the least. Now he heads for home, crossing the Indian Ocean, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and then heading northwards up the Atlantic. He arrives back in England in July 1771, after three years away. When Cook's journals from the voyage are published, they cause a sensation. It's the talk of London. There are exhibitions of artifacts that they've brought back at the British Museum and at lots of other sites. There are mentions of the voyages in plays

on the London stage, in popular songs. Even fashion colonists in newspapers write about the headdresses being in fashion because they're kind of inspired by some of the sort of Tahitian things that are described in Cook's narrative. Cook becomes an instant star, as does the young naturalist who accompanied him, Joseph Banks. But it's not just the scientific advancements and territorial gains that mark the voyage out as exceptional. In an age where scurvy kills so many sailors, Cook has somehow managed not to lose a single man. Though he doesn't understand precisely why, it seems their diet, rich in fruit and vegetables, has helped stave off the condition. And it would be another 20 years or so before the Admiralty started sending instead

lime juice and lemon juice, things that are higher in vitamin C, onto their ships. Cook's voyages aren't the thing that crack their scurvy puzzle, but they are seen as an important breakthrough. But the fact remains that Cook has returned without fulfilling the government's chief aim to find the southern land. In July 1772, less than a week after his wife Elizabeth gives birth to their fifth child, he leaves Plymouth to go in search of it again. This time Endeavour is replaced by a new bigger ship, Resolution, and accompanied by a second vessel, Adventure. Cook says of Resolution that it is a ship fitter for service than any he has seen.

His task is to make a circumnavigation at a very southerly latitude to confirm whether the purported landmass exists once and for all. In January 1773, Resolution becomes the first ship to cross into the Antarctic Circle, something it does twice more, going increasingly deep into the region. But in doing so, he proves conclusively that the southern land is but a myth. However, he does survey a number of other very real locations along the way. Among them, Easter Island, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Norfolk Island. All the while, he is continuing his research into

solving the vexed problem of how to measure longitude. So of course, if we think of the world or the surface of the world as a grid, as is the case in European navigation, you need two coordinates to pinpoint your position on that grid. One is your latitude, which is how far north or south you are. One is your longitude, which is how far you are east or west of a particular point. Measuring latitude was mastered long ago, but longitude has proven much trickier, which is why, back in 1714, Parliament passed the Longitude Act, essentially a competition to come up with a solution. Though the problem appears to be about distance, it's time that's also crucial to solving

it. It's known that the Earth rotates 15 degrees of longitude every hour. That means that a sailor can in theory compare their local time, found by observing the Sun, to that of a fixed reference place, such as Greenwich, in order to determine location. But with almost 70 miles between one degree of longitude at the equator, the timekeeping needs to be incredibly precise. Indeed, the Navy has in the past lost entire fleets to miscalculations. By the time of Cook's second expedition,

a super-accurate chronometer has been developed, though not yet adequately tested in the field. But Cook has found it so reliable, he's been happy to use it to plot his path home, instead of using other, more traditional methods, confirming that the conundrum has been solved. A third voyage beckons in 1776, with Cook setting sail once again in resolution from Plymouth in July. This time it is about two months since Elizabeth gave birth to their sixth child, and the couple hope desperately that he will fare better than their previous two babies who died in

infancy. As far as the public are concerned, Cook's main task is to repatriate a man named Omai, the first Pacific Islander to visit England after he joined the return leg of Cook's second voyage. But the real reason is to track down the Northwest Passage, a mythologized sea route linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the North American Arctic. If it exists, so the thinking goes, it will transform trade between Europe and Asia. The search has been on for well over 200 years already. After returning Oh My Home, Cook sails west across the central Pacific.

There he becomes the first recorded European to reach the Hawaiian islands, which he names the Sandwich Islands after the Earl of Sandwich, a British aristocrat. On first contact with the indigenous population, he discovers they speak a Polynesian dialect similar to those he has previously encountered. But as before, conflict arises between the locals and these unexpected visitors and one of Cook's senior officers shoots a man dead. Cook leads his fleet off early the next month, tracking north along the mainland coast of America. Despite bad weather, he eventually makes it all the way through the Bering Strait and heads northeast up the Alaskan coast until sea ice forces him back.

Though he fails in his search for the northwest passage, in a single trip he has overseen the mapping of much of the Pacific coast of North America, a magnificent achievement in its own right. of the Pacific coast of North America, a magnificent achievement in its own right. By September, he is heading back to the Sandwich Islands to regroup before another attempt at finding the passage. But he is suffering with a serious stomach complaint, and just as worryingly, his behavior is becoming erratic, especially when it comes to his dealings with local communities. becoming erratic, especially when it comes to his dealings with local communities. Cook's interactions with indigenous peoples across the Pacific are really varied. It's quite difficult to generalize. It certainly does seem to be the case that on all three voyages, particularly the third voyage though, that if he thinks his crew or his mission are in jeopardy,

or if he isn't getting what he wants, he will resort to threats, intimidation, and violence in his dealings with indigenous peoples. But equally, there are many more amicable meetings that he enjoys, where trade happens successfully, and even where he's treated to great hospitality as well. Docking at one point in the middle of a religious festival, he is made the focal point of a ceremony, leading some to think that the locals believe him to be a god. He and his men stay for a month, time enough to repair the ship and get ready for another northwest passage search.

But his ships have hardly set sail when Resolution breaks a mast and has to return to harbor. points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. It is the 14th of February, 1779, in Kealekakua Bay, Hawaii. A local boy, perhaps eight years old, stands on the warm white sand of the beach. The turquoise sea laps close by, calmly rhythmic. But the child's shoulders are hunched. He has his arms wrapped around his mother's waist, cowering behind her. In front of him, out on the water, the white men's big ships bob about.

The boy has met their leader before, the tall man with the powdery gray hair. He is confused as to exactly where he has come from and what he wants, although everything had seemed all right when the boats left a few days ago. But since they have come back, something is different, and the man with the gray hair is very angry. The boy gathers that someone from the island has taken one of the small boats that belongs to the big ships. Other things have gone missing too.

So now the gray-haired man and some of his sailors are frog-marching the local ruler, Kalaniopu'u, down the beach to put him on their ship. Hurtling down the beach, the chief's wife screams at her husband not to go with them. She has drawn a big crowd and everyone is shouting. The white men are giving as good as they get. The boy puts his hands over his ears to try to drown out the din, then watches on in tears as Kalaniopu'u sits down on the sand and refuses to move. Now the boy spots an old man approach the white men, brandishing a coconut and chanting. All the while the beach fills with more locals, the tension ratcheting up.

The white men begin to edge away, their guns raised. But then a scuffle breaks out. The boy cannot tell what is accidental and what is on purpose. Somehow the grey-haired man is struck with a shark-toothed club. He raises his hand to his head, checking for blood, as his legs give way beneath him and he falls onto the sand, the sea lapping around him. Another man lunges at him, a dagger glinting in his hand. All is now pandemonium.

The boy flinches as a gunshot cuts through the cacophony. The crowd of locals surges towards the visitors who start trying to row back to their ships. The boy is scooped up by his mother who hurries from the beach for the safety of home. But he watches over her shoulder nonetheless, unable to take his eyes from the horror, the blasts of the musket, the flashing of blades, the swinging of clubs. By the time it's over, Cook lies dead alongside four of his men. There are fatalities on the indigenous side too. The locals initially prepare Cook's body for ritual burial, a sign that he is still held in esteem even after the tragedy that has played out.

Eventually though, some of his remains are returned to his crew for burial at sea. It takes nearly a year and a half for word to reach England of Cook's death. George III is said to cry when he hears the news. But other than that, the response is strangely muted. There is no official commemoration or monument erected in his honor. The pension his widow receives, 200 pounds a year, is not especially generous. Despite her husband being at home for only about four of the seventeen years of their marriage, her grief is nonetheless heartfelt. When she gets news of Cook's death, she's been working on an embroidered waistcoat for him,

something he could wear at court. But it's not linen or the kind of familiar fabric that she's using. It's tapper cloth that he's bought back from Tahiti. She's embroidering that to make this waistcoat for him. So it's, you know, kind of his voyages and sort of the things that come from his voyages are quite literally being stitched into their family life in that sense. But others show little sympathy. Britain's colonial aspirations are up for debate.

Certainly some newspapers, The Morning Chronicle being one, prints reports of Cook's death that say if we were people in the Pacific and people turned up on our shores in strange boats with strange weapons, we might well see them as, and the phrase The Morning Chronicle used, invaders or pirates. It's only in the months and years that follow, driven by publishers seeking publicity, the journals of his last voyage, that there is a reappraisal of Cook's contribution. As the British begin to settle Australia in the years after his death, so begins his rehabilitation, in the eyes of his homeland at least,

as something akin to a founding father in the Pacific. His was a life forged in the crucible of exploration and fueled by the European dream of expansion. But in death, Cook becomes many things to many people. crucible of exploration and fueled by the European dream of expansion. But in death, Cook becomes many things to many people. To some he is remembered as a sailor and navigator, a seeker of knowledge, a medical pioneer. But with the impact of colonialism still being appraised and debated by historians, social theorists and ordinary people, he

is also associated with the imperial land grab that saw British interests prioritized over indigenous communities. Not just a student of untouched cultures, but an appropriator of them. Worse still, a murderer and harbinger of doom for countless millions. Where truth lies is in the end a matter of interpretation and personal conviction. I think it's just a really powerful example that there have always been different readings of his legacy, and you know, as there is for any historical figure, their reputation is always multifaceted and can be seen from many different perspectives

and is constantly changing through time and is being kind of rewritten and reinterpreted over and over again. When we think about Cook's legacy, it comes back to the complexities that are inherent within his voyages themselves. They are, on one level, voyages with a scientific imperative behind them. They are voyages that are born out of a desire to learn, a desire to sort of push the boundaries of knowledge and understanding to test out new theories. But then they are equally sort of bound up with a particular British imperial project. But 200 years down the line when we know that legacy, it becomes much more

complicated to sort of assess the sort of achievements that we can admire. But then we also kind of have to acknowledge on the other hand the implications of a lot of what he was doing and the impacts that it's had on many different parts of the world. Next time on Short History of we'll bring you a short history of the Stone Age. The Stone Age and prehistory in general is an incredibly distant time period and we are missing so much. I tried to use the analogy of a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, but we are missing most of those pieces as you open the box. As you remove that picture, you go through that 10,000 years of a degradation in the ground. So you're only left with maybe five pieces.

And those five pieces might be a scattering of stone tools, maybe some broken fragments of bone or pottery. Maybe, if we're very lucky, some preserved pieces of wood, and maybe one or two other things, but that's about it That's next time If you can't wait a week until the next episode you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noiza Plus head to www.noiza.com forward slash subscriptions for more information