James Cook was born on October 27, 1728 in Marton England. Unlike many of the people at his village school, Cook wasn't the son of rich or noble parents. Infact, he was the son of a Scottish farm laborer and a Yorkshire girl. Cook began as a farm laborer and grocer's assistant. He later found employment on the Baltic Sea in a collier, (coal transport ship), at the age of 18. On February 14th 1779, while Cook was in Hawaii, a fight broke out between Cook and his men and angry natives. Unfortunately, Cook was killed.
When Cook was 17, he started to work as apprentice to John Walker of Whitby, a ship owner specializing in the collier trade. Cook worked with him for awhile, but then decided to enlist in the Royal navy as an able seaman aboard the sixty-gun ship Eagle and was sent to the North American coast. In 1768, James Cook was selected to lead an expedition to observe the transit of Venus, and to explore new lands in the Pacific Ocean, his first voyage. On that voyage he observed the transit and mapped New Zealand, discovered it's southern island and mapped eastern coast of Australia. He later decided to lead a second voyage to confirm existence of a southern continent. On that voyage he discovered New Hebrides and New Caledonia. He also circumnavigated Antarctica. In 1775, he was awarded the Copeley Gold Medal and was elected as a fellow of the royal society. His third voyage was especially significant to the history of the West Coast of North America. His goal was to find the Northeast Passage from Pacific to Atlantic in North America. On that voyage he found Marquesas Islands, discovered Cook Islands and Hawaii. In 1778 he sailed his ship around the Cape of Good Hope to reach the West Coast of America. On his third voyage, after discovering Hawaii, he named them the Sandwich Islands in honor of John Montague, the earl of Sandwich. .
.
In 1835 Davy Crockett wrote a malicious biography of Van Buren hoping to end Van Buren's chances at the Democratic Republican nomination in 1836 (Hoyt 102-103). ... Butler then Felix Grundy in 1838, postmaster general was Amos Kendall, and the secretary of the navy was Mahlon Dickerson then James K. ...
