Who was Captain Cook?

0:00 Welcome to History's Not Boring by Kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn. Before we dive in, a huge hello to Jay, who is seven, and his big brother Kai, who is nine. They listen with their dad Nicholas from Brisbane, Australia.

0:17 And a huge happy 8th birthday to Helen, listening with her sister Grace from Huntington, New York. Have the best birthday ever.

0:25 And we can't forget a big shout out to Clayton, who listens in the car and actually requested today's incredible topic.

0:33 Great pick, Clayton. If you haven't already, tap follow wherever you're listening so you never miss an episode.

0:40 Alright, Finn. Close your eyes and imagine setting sail on a tiny wooden ship to explore a huge, mysterious ocean that covers almost one-third of the entire Earth.

0:51 One third of the whole planet? That is over 60 million square miles. That is absolutely massive.

0:58 Exactly! Today we are talking about Captain James Cook, the famous British explorer who mapped the vast Pacific Ocean, sailing to places no European had ever seen on a map before, from the beautiful coast of Australia to the islands of Hawaii and New Zealand. Our story begins way back in the 18th century, in 1728, in a tiny village in Yorkshire, England.

1:23 James Cook was born to a very poor family in a small mud-walled cottage.

1:28 Wait, a mud-walled cottage? So he definitely wasn't a rich prince or anything.

1:34 Not at all. He started out as a simple farm boy. But James was incredibly smart and wanted adventure. When he was just 18 years old, he left the farm to work on coal ships, sailing in the freezing, dangerous North Sea.

1:50 Working on a heavy coal ship sounds really dirty, cold, and exhausting.

1:55 It was brutal, backbreaking work. But at night, by the light of a tiny candle, James taught himself complex mathematics, navigation, and astronomy. He literally taught himself how to read the stars to find his way across the ocean.

2:12 Whoa, he learned all that math just by reading in the dark. That is really impressive.

2:18 It really was. Because he was so smart, in 1755 he joined the British Royal Navy. He quickly became famous for being one of the most brilliant mapmakers in the entire world. He could draw complex coastlines perfectly just by looking at them.

2:36 So what was his first really big adventure? Did they give him a giant warship?

2:40 Actually, no. In 1768, the British government gave him a massive top secret mission. And they gave him a ship called the Endeavour, which was actually a remodelled flat-bottomed coal ship. Why a coal ship? Aren't those super slow and clunky? They are slow, but their flat bottoms meant they could safely sail in shallow, unknown waters without getting stuck as easily.

3:06 Plus, they had huge, wide bellies to carry tons and tons of supplies. And they needed all that space because this voyage was going to take three long years. On August 26, 1768, Captain Cook set sail with 94 men crammed together onto the endeavour. 94 people! Just how big was this ship exactly? That is the craziest part.

3:35 It was only 106 feet long. That is about the length of just three school buses parked end to end.

3:43 That is way too small for 94 people. Where did everyone even sleep?

3:49 Below deck, packed tightly in swinging hammocks, with only 14 inches of space per man. Plus, they brought huge amounts of live animals for food, including pigs, sheep, goats, and chickens. You can imagine how terrible it smelled down there.

4:08 Where exactly were they going with this stinky floating farm?

4:13 First, they sailed thousands of miles around South America to the beautiful island of Tahiti in the Pacific Ocean. Their official public mission was to watch the planet Venus cross in front of the Sun on June 3, 1769, to help scientists measure the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

4:33 They sailed across the entire world just to look at a planet through a telescope.

4:38 Well, that was only part one. Once the telescope work was finished, Cook opened a sealed envelope containing secret orders from the king. The orders said, Sail south and find the legendary, undiscovered great southern continent. Did they find it? What happened next? They didn't find Antarctica just yet, but in October 1769 they reached New Zealand.

5:06 Cook spent six whole months sailing around the islands, mapping 2,400 miles of rugged coastline with unbelievable accuracy.

5:17 That is a ton of drawing. And then where did they go?

5:20 In April 1770, they sailed west and reached the eastern coast of Australia. Jay and Kai, this is the same coast where your incredible city of Brisbane is located today. Cook and his crew were the very first Europeans to ever set eyes on this massive coastline. But Finn, exploring completely unknown waters is extremely dangerous, even for a genius mapmaker.

5:48 On the dark night of June 11, 1770, the Endeavour was carefully sailing north along the edge of Australia.

5:57 Oh no, I do not like that tone of voice. What happened in the dark?

6:02 Crunch! The ship slammed right into the Great Barrier Reef! Massive, sharp coral spikes ripped a gigantic hole in the wooden bottom of the ship.

6:13 A giant hole in the boat, in the middle of the dark ocean. Did they sink right then and there? Seawater poured in fast.

6:21 The panicked crew frantically started working, the heavy wooden water pumps, desperately pumping out massive amounts of water without stopping. But the ocean was coming in faster than they could pump it out.

6:35 What did they do? They had to do something fast or they'd all drown.

6:40 Captain Cook stayed incredibly calm. He ordered his men to throw everything heavy overboard to make the ship lighter so it would float higher off the reef. They even threw out six massive iron cannons, each weighing over 1,200 pounds.

6:57 Did it work? How did they stop the water from rushing in?

7:02 They used an old sailors trick called Fothering. They took a huge, heavy canvas sail, covered it thickly in sheep poop, loose wool, and sticky rope fibres, and dragged it underwater beneath the ship. The immense pressure of the ocean sucked the gross sticky sail right into the hole and completely plugged it.

7:24 Wait, you are telling me that sheep poop literally saved their lives? That is the grossest and most awesome survival story I have ever heard. It actually worked.

7:36 They slowly limped ashore and spent two whole months completely rebuilding the bottom of the ship. Cook actually went on two more enormous voyages over the next ten years, sailing further south into the freezing ice of the Antarctic than anyone before him, and exploring new areas of the Arctic in the Pacific.

7:57 Did he ever retire and stop exploring? He didn't. During his third incredible voyage, he spent some time visiting Hawaii. But on February 14, 1779, tensions sadly rose with the local Hawaiian people over a stolen small boat. A terrible, chaotic fight broke out on the rocky beach, and Captain Cook was unfortunately killed.

8:22 Even though his life ended in tragedy, Captain James Cook completely revolutionised how the world was mapped. His charts were so incredibly accurate that some of them were still being used by sailors more than 100 years later.

8:38 He figured all of that out while bouncing around on a tiny wooden ship. That is unbelievable.

8:45 It really is. And he achieved something even better for his sailors. He practically eliminated a terrifying disease called scurvy on his ships.

8:56 What exactly is scurvy? It sounds like a bad word for a stinky pirate.

9:02 It was a terrible, deadly disease that sailors got from not having enough vitamin C on long trips. It made you super weak, and your teeth would actually fall out of your head.

9:14 My teeth? No, thank you. How in the world did he stop it?

9:18 Pickled cabbage! Captain Cook loaded his ship with a staggering 7,860 pounds of sauerkraut, and he forced his crew to eat it all the time. The fresh vitamins kept everyone totally healthy.

9:35 Okay, I guess I'll definitely eat my vegetables now. Do you have any other weird facts about his trips?

9:42 Remember when they stopped in Tahiti? Cook met a brilliant Polynesian high priest and master navigator named Tupiah. Tupaia could navigate a ship across thousands of miles of open, featureless ocean just by reading the stars, the shape of the ocean swells, and watching seabirds without using a compass or a map at all.

10:05 Whoa! He was basically like a human GPS system.

10:10 Exactly! Tupia even drew a map of all the Pacific Islands for Cook. And one more quick fun fact. Cook's crew were the first Europeans to learn the aboriginal name for a strange animal they saw. The kangaroo. They frantically wrote in their journals, describing it as mouse-coloured, the size of a greyhound dog, and jumping like a hare.

10:35 Haha, mouse-coloured and jumping like a hare? That is absolutely hilarious. Alright Finn, time for the quiz. Are you ready? Okay, I'm ready. Let's do this.

10:46 Okay, first question. What was the name of the ship Captain Cook sailed on his first voyage? Next one. What disgusting ingredient did the crew use to plug the hole in the ship? Question three. What sour food did Cook feed his crew to stop them from getting sick with scurvy? Here's number four. What was the name of the Polynesian master navigator who sailed with them?

11:25 Last question. How many pounds did each of the heavy iron cannons weigh that they threw overboard? Great job! Let's see how you did. The first answer is the endeavour. For question two, they used sheep poop, wool and rope fibres. Number three, the answer is sauerkraut or pickled cabbage. Question four, his name was Tupia.

11:55 And the final answer is they weighed over £1,200 each.

12:01 Wow, that was incredible! I can't believe how brave they were to sail into the total unknown. Right?

12:08 And surviving hitting a reef by plugging it with a sail. Captain Cook and his crew were amazing problem solvers.

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12:52 See you next time on History's Not Boring. Bye.