Once Upon A Time... The Explorers

All discoveries of former times have been made on the ship. This began with the simplest means: log-boats, rafts and anything that would swim. The Mediterranean region was dominated by three great naval powers for a long time: the Cretans, Phoenicians and Mycenae. Each one of them wanted the predominance and to reach that they even engaged in tough battles. The Egyptian Pharaohs wanted to have some say as well. The Greek dared to advance the most, up to the mysterious land of Thule, the land where the sun never sets…

400 B.C., this is where our story begins. Greece lives in the shadow of the mighty Persian Empire. Alexander grows up in the small kingdom of Macedonia. His mother Olympias arranges a good education for her son. She is convinced that Alexander is of divine origin and immortal. The boy believes his mother’s “wisdom” and tries to conquer the world as a grown-up man. The historians call him “Alexander the Great”, but at the age of 33 he shares the fate of any other mortal being.

They belonged to the first ones to discover America: The Vikings. That was 500 years before Christopher Columbus. His name was Erik, more precisely, Erik the Red, because his red hair was well recognizable even from a far distance. Erik got expelled from his country, so he set sail, went westwards and discovered Greenland. His son Leif went a step farther: he discovered Baffin Island, Labrador and Newfoundland. The new land seemed to have everything the Vikings needed, but there were original inhabitants in their way, that weren’t pleased by the arrival of the Vikings. The Vikings were smart, so they left and went towards Norway. That why in today’s Norway, there are plenty of little Eriks and Leifs with bright red hair.

His name is Temudjin, he is a little nomad boy and shall one day become one of the greatest conquerors of all times: Gengis Khan. But until then it’s still a long way. His father dies when he is still a child. An old tradition says that the firstborn son steps into his father’s shoes when he was chief. The other men won’t listen to a kid though, so the Mongols split up into different antagonizing clans. Temudjin learns with the aid of the old Shiarok how to fight and what’s important in life. One day, he masters to reunite his folk to go on conquering expeditions in the rest of the world.

1325. A young Berber named Ibn Battuta leaves Morocco for a pilgrimage to Mecca, as every good Muslim should. Little does he know, nor his parents, about the journey he’s about to go on. He will travel through 44 countries in 29 years. On his way, he experiences a lot of adventures, dangers and strokes of fate. The princes, sultans and viziers appreciate his sophistication and discretion. Sometimes he stays at one place for several years, but at some point he always continues his journey. He travels through Persia, the Black Sea and the deserts of Sahara and Gobi. Only when he reaches Beijing, he decides to return to his original home. This is where he writes his memoirs.

When Marco Polo came to China at the end of the 13th century, he was especially impressed by the huge five-masted junks. Yet, those ships were only the forerunners of what would come two centuries later: the most exceptional fleet the world had ever seen until then. The emperor Chu Ti managed to have his people build an armada which contained 300 ships and 27000 sailors.

The story’s set in the end of the 15th century. Spain and Portugal both seek for the legendary seaway to India. They hope to access the trade routes and thus the resources of the orient, especially nutmeg, pepper and clove. The king of Portugal sends Vasco da Gama on the mission to find the seaway to India. He would be accompanied by his brother Paulo, the king’s astronomer Zacuto ben Samuel and Bartholomew Diaz, who was the first one to pass the Cape of Good Hope ten years earlier. They have one map which was drawn after the vague description of a wayfarer and, at that time, was the only one that would show a peace of India…

1453: The end of the Hundred Years’ War announces a time of change for Europe. Spain unites around Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile to achieve the “Reconquista”. A vast empire comprising Germany, Burgundy, the Netherlands and Spain is slowly building itself up. Popes, emperors, kings, princes and dukes are excited about finding their place in the new alliance. There’s a lot of exchange of information, letters and news, and it’s the horseback couriers who ensure a hand to hand delivery. Still, delivering mail takes a lot of time. In Innsbruck, where Emperor Maximilian resides, a new postal system is founded by the family Taxis…

Thinking of the discoverer of the Americas, one thinks of Christopher Columbus first. Amerigo Vespucci, after whom the continent was named, is usually forgotten. Also forgotten are two men that were around Columbus and took great efforts: Martin and Francisco Pinzon. They were merchants and sailors from Palos in southern Spain. Without them, Columbus might not have found the American continent.

America’s not called Columbia, after its discoverer Columbus, but still America. Amerigo Vespucci comes from a bourgeois family. As a child of the Italian renaissance (he was born in 1454 in Florence) he studies the typical subjects Astronomy, Philosophy, Latin and Cartography. His friends are Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli, who steals his girlfriend and makes her his favorite model for painting. Amerigo wants to see the world and experience some adventures. One day, Columbus comes back from his first expedition. Amerigo is convinced that the place that Columbus discovered could impossibly be India… Later he goes on a journey himself.

In 1518, the young captain Fernando Magellan and is friend who is an astronomer, Rui Faliero are at the court of the King of Spain to present young Charles the Fifth an astonishing project. They want to find the western seaway to India. Meanwhile, the Portuguese, their rivals, have been travelling around southern Africa ever since Vasco da Gama. Soon the great adventure starts. Five large ships go on the journey: the Trinidad, the San Antonio, the Conception, the Victoria and the Seville. After a lot of danger and many efforts, Magellan finally reaches the Pacific. But here, the hardest part will only start. Magellan and his friends would be on the sea for a hundred days…

In the early 16th century, North America still is an unknown continent. Many conquistadors leave to explore the new world. Thus, five caravels under the command of Panfilo de Narvaez with 600 sailors land at the coast of Florida. Narvaez is an evil fellow. He forages and caries women and children as his slaves wherever he goes. Cabeza de Vaca, the treasurer of the expedition, opposes those barbarous methods of Narvaez, without any success… The natives recognize the danger and fight, wherever they can.

In 1698, Peter the Great is crowned Tsar of the Russian Empire. He wants to open his country towards the east and the west. That’s why his heraldic animal, the two-headed eagle, looks into both cardinal directions from the residence in St. Petersburg. Peter the Great knows Europe quite well, since he has travelled it before. But in the East there’s Siberia, “the sleeping land”, and only the migrant birds, so it is said, know how far the land reaches. The young Dane Vitus Bering is summoned to appear at the court of the Tsar. He receives the mission to explore the land in the east. It would last two years for Bering to reach the Siberian coast. Finally, he will prove that there’s a sea gate which separates Alaska from Siberia…

Exploring the Pacific was one of the biggest attempts in the history of mankind. Longtime before the Europeans, it was the Polynesians to investigate the large sea. Their own country became too small for them, so they left to find new islands. They went on a long journey. Around 1540, the first Spanish people came to this area and discovered many islands which they gave pretty names: Salomon islands, New Caledonia, Samoa, Tahiti, Hawai, the Marquises… There was one land that hadn’t been discovered though, the "terra australis non cognita", the unknown land in the South…

James Bruce was a descendant of the old Scottish royal house. When he acquires a huge prosperity, he can finally fulfill his dream: the discovery of the spring of the Nile. Bruce supposes the spring would be in Lake Tana in Abyssinia, which is in present-day Ethiopia. Since he doesn’t have any precise maps, he follows some simple principle: always walking along the river, until he would reach the spring. He starts with his friend Luigi Balugani at the Red Sea. Along the way, he experiences a civil war and encounters pirates. After many adventures, he will finally discover a spring…

In 1735, the French scientists are arguing if the earth has the shape of a potato, or rather an apple or even a pear. It is decided to make an expedition to make the measurements that are necessary to answer this question. Isaac Newton, the great British scientist, had calculated that the earth would have a bulge at the equator due to the turning. Charles Marie de la Condamine, next to Godin and Bouguer, receives the task to travel to the equator and investigate. He is joined on the expedition by mathematicians, botanists, doctors, animal scientists and sailors…

He’s one of the greatest sailors and explorers of all times: James Cook. Coming from a humble background, he became, thanks to his talent and diligence, chief officer. In 1768, Cook became commandant of the “Endeavour”, with the mission to explore the entire Pacific Ocean. Altogether he went on three expeditions. During the first one he tried to find the famous North-West-Passage between the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean…

Alexander von Humboldt was born in 1769. His parents were great land owners in Prussia, and his friends were Goethe, Schiller, Fichte and Schelling. At the age of 28, in 1797, he went to Paris, also being interested in the French Revolution. He met the French botanist Aimé Bonpland. They became friends and decided to work together in the future. Their plan was to go on an expedition to the Spanish areas in South America…

Meriwether Lewis was born in 1774 in the shire of Albermarle in the USA. William Clark was born in 1770 in Carolina. They represent the huge Far-West-Expedition. In 1801, after having finished his studies and being a soldier, Lewis became the private secretary of President Jefferson. He received the task to go on an expedition to explore the Mississippi and the Missouri, to widen the American inland trade. Until then, there had only been a few discoveries by Europeans on the American continent. Lewis chose Clark to accompany him. On May 14th in 1804, the great journey began, and it would comprise 200 million hectares…

Australia still is the unknown continent. In 1787, the British government sourced out a large amount of the prisoners to Australia. Soon, the first cities developed, like Bathurst, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne and Darwin. But the colonization of this continent was restricted to only a few coastal areas. It’s Charles Sturt, who went on an expedition in 1844 with 16 men, 30 cattle, 200 sheep and four big carriages. Water provision was the biggest problem while crossing the continent. Up to 1859, there were ten expeditions that tried to cross the continent, and each one failed. And then there was the race between John McDouall Stuart and Robert O'Hara Burke...

The story’s set in the dawn of the 19th century. Africa still is an unknown land. Indeed, the first explorers have discovered several coastal areas, but they all had quite greedy intentions, which become obvious by the names that they gave to their discoveries: “Ivory Coast”, “Gold Coast”, “Slave Coast”… Still, there are soon some explorers that are interested in the inland as well. One of those pioneers is David Livingstone, who arrives in South Africa in 1841 and wants to start a journey across the huge continent from there. In 1849, he discovers Lake Ngami. Livingstone fights slavery relentlessly. And one day he would meet Stanley…

The poles have always fascinated men. Axis of the Earth, magnetic indicators… The approach was hard though, since they are situated in the perpetual ice. James Cook was pretty close to them, but he never left his ship. The Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen surrendered some 450 km away from his destination. The Swede Salomon André tried a flyover via hot-air balloon, but he failed. It was the young Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who dreamed of discovering the poles ever since he was a kid, who started a great journey in 1903…

Even during her studies, the young Frenchwoman Alexandra David-Neel was interested in Tibet and the Himalaya. The “Orientalism” became popular in the closing years of the 19th century. At the age of 45, Alexandra decides to travel to Lhasa, the “city of the holy books”. Dressed as a beggar, accompanied by a young lama, she reaches the Tibetan capital as the first European woman who would ever set her feet on the ground of Lhasa.

As the 20th century begins, we find that the oceans, continents, tropical rainforests and polar regions have all been visited and explored by men. But what would be above the earth? In 1930, the professor Auguste Piccard from the University of Brussels, invented a pressurized metallic cabin which allowed him to be the first one to ever reach the stratosphere, rising up to 15800 meters of altitude with a balloon. After this groundbreaking record, he wants to see the depths of the oceans… These abysses, more than ten thousand meters deep, are logically unreachable to man, as the existing pressure there amounts to over a thousand kilos per square centimetre! Piccard and his son accept the challenge…

Mankind was always fascinated by the highest mountain tops. In the earlier centuries, summits with a height of 1000 to 3000 meters truly scared the people. It was thought that gods and yetis and other creatures would live on the unreachable Mount Olympus. Nowadays, mountain climbing is an athletic challenge. In the 20th century, a footrace to climb the highest mountain tops began…

In this very last episode, Maestro sums up the prior episodes and gives a forecast for the future. He shows the path of our planet earth, from the beginning to the first appearance of life. If the history of the world had taken only 24 hours, then humankind would only have existed for about 10 seconds so far… How is life going to develop on earth? Are we going to be able to cope with the problems we have to face, like overpopulation and hunger crisis? Questions that only the future can answer…