Search Results: Cartography

King Sejong the Great (15 May 1397 to 8 April 1450 CE) ruled Korea from 1418 to 1450 CE as the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty (also spelled Choson). One of only two Korean kings called 'the Great' today, Sejong had a major impact on Korea...

This gallery of 30 maps traces the history of cartography, with examples of maps made by cultures from the Paleolithic to the early modern period. The maps cover cities, states, continents, sometimes the entire world as it was known at the...

The Han Dynasty (202 BCE - 220 CE) was the second dynasty of Imperial China (the era of centralized, dynastic government, 221 BCE - 1912 CE) which established the paradigm for all succeeding dynasties up through 1912 CE. It succeeded the...

Prince Henry the Navigator (aka Infante Dom Henrique, 1394-1460) was a Portuguese prince who famously helped capture the North African city of Ceuta, sponsored voyages of exploration with the aim of building colonies in the North Atlantic...

The caravel (caravela in Spanish and Portuguese), was a type of medium-sized ship which, with its low draught and lateen or triangular sails, made it ideal for exploration from the 15th century onwards. Fast, manoeuvrable, and only needing...

Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100 to c. 170 CE) was an Alexandrian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer. His works survived antiquity and the Middle Ages intact, and his theories, particularly on a geocentric model of the universe with planets...

Edmond Halley (1656-1742) was an English astronomer, mathematician, and cartographer. Halley's Comet is named after him since he accurately predicted its return in 1758. One of the early globetrotting scientists, Halley led several maritime...

Mesopotamia is the ancient Greek name (meaning “the land between two rivers”, the Tigris and Euphrates) for the region corresponding to modern-day Iraq and parts of Iran, Syria, and Turkey. It is considered the “cradle of civilization” for...

The foundation of observatories during the Scientific Revolution (1500-1700) followed a process of evolution from entirely independent observatories operated by a single astronomer to private observatories which received state or private...

The HMS Gloucester was wrecked in the North Sea, about 30 miles off the shore of Norfolk, England, shortly after dawn on 6 May 1682. It was a warship in the navy of Charles II of England (r. 1660-1685), and at the time of its loss, it was...