Rivers, ice, jungle and orbit. The map has been finished for a while, which only makes the people who filled it in stranger.
1Meriwether LewisCo-led the expedition that crossed the continent to the Pacific and back between 1804 and 1806.
2William ClarkThe mapmaker of the Corps of Discovery, whose charts stood as the best of the West for decades.
3Neil ArmstrongCommanded Apollo 11 and became the first person to set foot on another world.
4SacagaweaThe Lemhi Shoshone interpreter and guide whose presence and knowledge kept the Lewis and Clark expedition alive.
5Robert PearyLed the 1909 Arctic expedition that claimed the North Pole, a claim argued over ever since.
6Matthew HensonPeary's co-explorer on eight Arctic voyages and, by several accounts, the first man to stand at the Pole.
7Theodore RooseveltCo-led the 1913–14 descent of the Amazon's River of Doubt, now the Rio Roosevelt, and nearly died doing it.
8John Wesley PowellRan the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1869 with one arm and four boats.
9Amelia EarhartFirst woman to fly the Atlantic solo, and the century's most famous disappearance.
10Charles LindberghFlew the first solo nonstop crossing of the Atlantic in 1927 in thirty-three and a half hours.
11Robert BallardThe oceanographer who found the Titanic in 1985 and turned deep-sea robotics into exploration.
12Sally RideThe first American woman in space, aboard Challenger in 1983.
13Zebulon PikeExplored the southern Louisiana Purchase and left his name on the Colorado peak he never climbed.
Comments 1
Aged 55 and a guest of the Brazilian government, he came off the River of Doubt with a leg infection. Matthew Henson made eight Arctic voyages: https://youpick.best/articles/theodore-roosevelt-ranked-many-ways
YP
ypb-teamAug 21
