The 17 Most Underrated Explorers Of All Time!

This British aristocrat had a distinguished military career in the 18th century, having commanded fleets throughout the Wars of the Spanish Succession, the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War.

At the outset of the War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739, Lord Anson undertook a voyage in which he circumnavigated the world. It wasn't until after this voyage was he given senior command of the Royal Navy in the Seven Years' War. At the time, a feat like that would put you down in history as an expert navigator, scientist, sailor and commander.

Another explorer we never get to hear about: Mikhail Levashev was the first person to explore Alaska and the Aleutian Islands during the Imperial period of Russian history.

During the reign of Catherine the Great, he was sent as the main assistant to expedition leader Krenitzin to explore the area around the Bering Strait. Unfortunately, in 1770, Krenitzin died, leaving Mikhail Levashev as the expedition leader. Upon returning, many of the places discovered and visited by Krenitzin and Levashev had been named after them in the subsequent maps that were drawn up based on their expedition.

It is easy to forget that the first explorers had to discover the secrets of the Old Word before discovering the new. Such is the case of Ingólfr Arnarson, a Nordic explorer of the 9th century CE.

Ingólfr Arnarson and his wife Hallveig Frodesdatter are largely considered the first permanent settlers on Iceland. According to legend, in the 9th century, this famous couple founded the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik. While there are some records indicating that Irish hermits and monks first discovered Iceland earlier, the famous capital city of Iceland was given its name by Ingólfr, sparking a new era of Nordic immigration to the North Atlantic Island, which would ultimately spawn more viking voyages aimed at exploring the world!

This lesser known conquistador is largely remembered for his participation in the conquest of Cuba, as well as the exploration of the Yucatan Peninsula, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

Alvarado is also infamous for his subjugation of the native Mexican people. Throughout his expeditions, Pedro de Alvarado committed what we would today call ethnic cleansing. Wherever he went, mass murder and terror is what he greeted native populations with. Among the natives themselves, he was known as " Tonatiuh," meaning "sun" in the Nahuatl language. He was also known as "Red Sun" to natives, which certainly allows for some gruesome interpretations.

On March 18, 1965, Alexey Leonov became the very first person to ever "spacewalk." This was a feat of great proportions, as no one before has ever experienced outer space quite like that.

During the Voskhod 2 mission, Leonov performed "extravehicular activity," now commonly referred to as a "spacewalk" for a full 12 minutes. He was the very first cosmonaut, or human for that matter, to experience outer space outside of a spaceship: hence, "extravehicular." Perhaps one of the most underrated explorers who often gets overshadowed by his American counterparts who landed on the moon.

Sir Francis Drake was a 16th century privateer, sea captain, and slaver in Elizabethan England. He is famous for following in the footsteps of Ferdinand Magellan by being the second person ever to circumnavigate the world in a single trip.

Drake was also in the British Navy as a vice admiral and was actually the second-in-command against the Spanish Armada in 1588. But before he was sinking Spanish ships for the Queen, he was sinking Spanish ships for gold. In his earlier years, he was a pirate known as El Draque to the Spanish.

The story of Hanno the Navigator comes down to us through an ancient Greek periplus, a kind of manuscript of ports and landmarks, used to aid navigators and judge distances at sea.

According to legend, Hanno was a Carthaginian explorer in the fifth century BCE. He made an expedition with sixty ships past the straits of Gibralter and down the west coast of Africa. He founded and repopulated at least seven colonies, including what is now Morocco. Some modern analysts even think that Hanno got as far south as Gabon!

Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd is famous for his expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. He was the first person to ever reach the South Pole by air, and while he claims the same of the North Pole, it seems to be disputed.

There are some who do believe that Rear Admiral Byrd discovered something that science claims to be impossible: A hidden world beneath the Earth, supporting the claim of the Hollow Earth hypothesis. Proponents believe that Byrd flew into a massive 10-mile wide hole at the North Pole, and flew into the Hollow Earth realm, meeting and conversing with the people there, who are supposedly immortal and enlightened beings.

Captain James Cook was an English officer in the Royal Navy of England, as well as a cartographer and navigator. He is most famous for his second voyage, in which he searched for the hypothetical continent of Terra Australis.

The voyage was commissioned by the Royal Society to find Terra Australis, a hypothetical southern continent believed to be connected to New Zealand and Australia. While he never found Terra Australis, he did become the first person to circumnavigate and cross over the Antarctic circle. Cook very nearly discovered Antarctica itself, but had to turn his ship around towards Tahiti in order to resupply.

Jacques Cartier was a French explorer of Breton origin who discovered the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence river. He continued to explore the river, claiming the region, and Canada, for France.

The exploration of Canada and the St. Lawrence River successfully opened up the northern continent to trade for France. A sharp distinction of French colonization and exploration of the North American continent from their European counterparts was their treatment of native populations: opting for peace and trade, rather than war and conquest.

While we do get to hear about Amerigo Vespucci, it's surprising just how much he is overlooked, considering his name is the basis for the word "America."

You're probably wondering why we don't call America "Columbia" after Christopher Columbus, yes? This is because, to his dying day, Columbus believed that he had in fact found the West Indies, not a brand new continent. It wasn't until Amerigo Vespucci set sail and proved without a doubt that the lands Columbus found were in fact a separate continent between Europe and Asia, which solidified Amerigo as the true discoverer of America for what it is.

David Livingstone was largely considered a legend in Victorian England. A medical missionary pioneer, he was one of the first men to explore the interior of Africa.

His exploits would become legend even just a few years after his death. It is said that Livingstone's motivation was to find the fabled sources of the Nile, where he hoped he could end the Arab-Swahili slave trade, which in his own words were "an immense evil." His expeditions inspired many future missionaries to explore and Christianize Africa.

Pythéas of Massallia (modern day Marseille, France) was an ancient Greek geographer, scholar, and explorer. His work, "On The Ocean," described his voyages on the sea from about 330 to 320 BCE.

He is most famous for discovering Great Britain; the geography in his descriptions passed down by scholars since, matches the region precisely. Pytheas is also credited as being the first person in western civilization to describe and witness polar ice and the Midnight Sun, a solar phenomenon that only occurs past the Arctic and Antarctic circles.

Ibn Battuta lead one of the most incredible and fascinating lives one could imagine. While we usually think of explorers going off and finding new lands, Ibn Battuta was more concerned with exploring the lands which were already known.

This 14th century Moroccan Muslim scholar traveled the entire known world, writing about his adventures along the way. It's actually easier to list the places he didn't visit, than the ones that he has. Making strides all across the Middle East, Africa, India, and China. The one place he didn't visit seems to be Europe; however, that's not surprising, as at his time, Europe was the uncivilized backwater of the world.

It's very surprising we don't hear that much about John Cabot. While Christopher Columbus discovered Hispaniola and other islands in the Caribbean, Cabot discovered mainland North America itself.

John Cabot found himself commissioned by the King of England, Henry VII, to find land in the name England. Cabot proved himself quite the clever man. He decided to begin his journey at a higher latitude, because according to the shape of the Earth, the distance between the Old and New Worlds would be closer together. He was proved correct, as ever since, many English settlers and explorers would follow Cabot's route to the New World.

Pedro Alvarez Cabral was a Portuguese nobleman, military commander, navigator and explorer. He is credited with exploring the coast and interior of Brazil and claiming it for Portugal.

While Cabral did not, in fact, discover Brazil, he completed the first substantial exploration of the northeast coast of Brazil in the early 1500s. This led to him being the very first explorer to set foot on four different continents, uniting Europe, Africa, America, and Asia into one continuous voyage.

By far the single most underrated explorer ever is Leif Ericsson. For whatever reason, after all these years, Christopher Columbus still gets all the love. He even gets a day named after him. Where is Leif Ericsson Day?

Leif Ericsson discovered the New World literally, centuries before Columbus. Signs of viking exploration and even settlement have been found on Newfoundland dating back to around 1,000 CE. That's almost five hundred years before Columbus accidentally ran into the Caribbean thinking it was the West Indies.

The Vikings even knew what they were looking for! By 1,000 CE, the Vikings had been exploring the arctic and the northern Atlantic for centuries, settling Iceland and Greenland a couple of centuries before Leif Ericsson even set sail. The irony here is that it was all written down in the sagas. Which we have. And translated. That's an epic fail public school.