Exploration
James Cook was an English explorer, navigator  and cartographer. Captain Cook made three voyages to the Pacific Ocean. He mapped many areas and recording several islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He explored the east coast of Australia, and visited the Hawaiian Islands. He was also the first to map parts of Newfoundland and New Zealand. In 1769 he received a gift from a Polynesian priest named Tupaia. It was a map of all the major islands of the South Pacific—the first any European had ever seen. It matched what Cook had already explored and included other parts of the Pacific he had not seen. It allowed him to bring back an accurate map of the Pacific.