Tahiti: Did you mean...?

A painting by William Hodges of Maitavie Bay, Tahiti in 1776. The ships are Resolution and Adventure under the command of Captain James Cook. (Royal Museums Greenwich)

The 1789 mutiny on the Bounty is an infamous tale of sailors being lured by the easy charms of the South Seas into casting adrift their commander and living out their days as fugitives from the Royal Navy. 'Captain' Bligh, victim of the mutiny...

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was a French neo-impressionist painter whose vivid paintings with their flat, bold colours and use of mystical and ambiguous symbols revolutionised art. Never quite gaining success in his own lifetime...

Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) was an English navigator and hydrographer. He was the first person to map the coastal outline of Australia in 1801-1803, following his circumnavigation of the 7.692 million square kilometres (2.96 million square...

Menehune is the term applied to short-statured, forest-dwelling creatures of Hawaiian mythology and is part of a common mythology throughout Polynesia that describes secretive, supernatural beings with human-like attributes. Mysterious supernatural...

Located at the easternmost point of the Hawaiian Islands, Cape Kumukahi holds a special place in ancient Hawaiian mythology as this was where the gods and goddesses first arrived in the islands from Tahiti. It was here that the fire goddess...

Polynesian navigation of the Pacific Ocean and its settlement began thousands of years ago. The inhabitants of the Pacific islands had been voyaging across vast expanses of ocean water sailing in double canoes or outriggers using nothing...

Te Papa Tongawera (or simply Te Papa) is New Zealand's innovative national museum situated near the foreshore of beautiful Wellington harbour. Te Papa Tongawera means “container of treasures” in Te Reo Maori, which is the indigenous language...

A protrait of William Bligh (1754-1817), the British naval officer most famously associated with the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789. Painting by John Condé. (National Maritime Museum)

Ferdinand Magellan, or Fernão de Magalhães (c. 1480-1521), was a Portuguese mariner whose expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1519-22 in the service of Spain. Magellan was killed on the voyage in what is today the Philippines...