I'm an IT major and I chose one elective about Age of Discovery.
We went through all the major explorers: Dias, Columbus, da Gama, Magellan, Cortes, Pizarro, Cook, Livingstone and explorers of China/India.
I must write an essay about one explorer. I already know that my lecturer is flooded with work about Magellan and Columbus. Do you have anything on your mind what I can write about? Essay should 4-5 pages long, so sources shouldn't be very hard to find.
Thank you! :)
Try this guy.
If it must be the age of discovery and not run of the mill you can look at the exploration and exploitation of the artic (Spitzbergen, Novaya Zemlya, Greenland).
Some wiki articles;
An explorer stuck for a winter near Spitzbergen (trying to find a northern route to China);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Barentsz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Svalbard
Dutch compagnie with the monopoly of whale oil on dutch markets (comparable to the VOC and the WIC, although smaller). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noordsche_Compagnie
Still the scale really wasn't minor (from the history of svalbard Wiki article);
By the late 17th century there were between 200 and 300 ships and in excess of 10,000 whalers around Spitsbergen. The first overwintering was involuntarily undertaken by an English group in Bellsund in 1630–31. The first planned overwintering was done by Noordsche Compagnie in 1633–34.
You might want to write about the first person to circumnavigate the world; a slave named Enrique of Malacca.