James Cook discovered the South Sandwich Islands, explored the east coast of Australia and made the first firmly documented visit to Hawaii. He was one of the most important explorers in European history.
James Cook was not successful in all of his goals as an explorer, however. One of his main goals on his second voyage was to find Terra Australis Incognita, a vast southern continent. He also aimed to find the Northwest Passage, a path connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean across the top of North America. Both of these are nonexistent. The journey to discover these places, however, led him to expand the fields of navigation and cartography and helped the scientists on the voyages with him learn much about botany, biology and astronomy.
