English naval officer, explorer, cartographer and discoverer, a member of the Royal Society and the Royal Navy captain. Headed three expeditions to study the oceans, all were circumnavigations. During these expeditions made a number of geographical discoveries. Explored and mapped the little-known and rarely visited him to Newfoundland and the east coast of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the west coast of North America, the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Thanks to the attention that Cook gave cartography, many of them drawn maps of their precision and accuracy were not surpassed for decades and served as the Mariners until the second half of the XIX century.
