Notable & Famous Explorers Posters “T...-U...-”
for social studies teachers and home schoolers, theme decor in office.

Abel Janszoon Tasman
b. 1603; Lutjegast, Dutch Republic
d. 10-10-1659; Batavia (now Jakarta)

Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant. The island of Tasmania and the Tasman Sea are named after him, and he was the first European to see New Zealand.

• Voyages of Abel Janzoon Tasman

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
b. c. 1605; Paris, France
d. c. July 1689; Moscow, Russia (attack wild dogs)

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, French traveller and pioneer of trade with India, was born in 1605 at Paris. His father Gabriel, and uncle Melchior, in pursuing the profession of geographers and engravers, exposed the young man to the adventure of travel and commerce.

• Travels in India by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier Baron of Aubonne

David Thompson
b. 4-30-1770; London, England
d. 2-10-1857; Montreal, Canada

Fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, David Thompson mapped North America west of Hudson Bay and Lake Superior, across the Rocky Mountains to the source of the Columbia River, and followed the length of the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. He has been described as the “greatest land geographer who ever lived” and known to some native peoples as “Koo-Koo-Sint” or “the Stargazer”.

FYI ~ Thompson, apprenticed to the Hudson Bay Company at age 14 to clerk in present day Manitoba, requested surveying tools as his parting gift rather than fine clothing.

While surveying the forty-ninth parallel to establish Canadian-US boundaries of the Treaty of Versailes, Thompson mapped the Mandan villages on the Missouri River, information that was used by Lewis and Clark.