1. Though Columbus undertook almost all his voyages for the Spanish empire, he was originally a citizen of which European republic?

2. The great admiral Zheng commanded expeditions to South-East Asia, India, West Asia and Africa in the 15th century with ships almost 4 times the size of contemporary European vessels. Which tourist attraction is he believed to have introduced in a city in Kerala?

3. Which sea, officially named after a Dutch explorer, is often referred to as ‘The Ditch’ by the citizens of the two nations it separates?

4. Which island did a Dutch expedition, under the leadership of Admiral Wybrand van Warwyck, name in 1598 after the Dutch prince of Nassau?

5. Nain Singh Rawat was one of India’s greatest explorers and in 1877, was awarded the Royal Geographic Society’s Patron’s Medal for his expeditions to Tibet and the upper Brahmaputra. For which ambitious project, begun in 1802, was he first hired by the East India Company?

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6. Which fictional Princeton native, a tenured professor of archaeology whose research is funded by Marshall College, was first seen on screens in 1981?

7. By what name was Dom Henrique of Portugal, the fourth son of Portuguese King John I, better known in Europe thanks to his explorations in Africa and the islands of the Atlantic?

8. Which Italian explorer’s 1497 voyage to the coast of North America is regarded as the first European exploration there since the Norse visits to Vinland in the 11th century? He shares his anglicised name with a famous Boston family.

9. What did cartographer Martin Waldseemuller do in 1507 order to recognize and honour the travels of an Italian explorer from Florence to the New World?

10. Who, heartbroken on hearing that Robert Peary had already reached the North Pole, decided to turn his plans around 180 degrees and in 1911-12 became the first known explorer to reach the South Pole?

Answers

1. The Republic of Genoa in modern Italy

2. The Chinese fishing nets in Kochi were originally built after one of his visits

3. The Tasman Sea, named after Abel Tasman, that separates Australia and New Zealand

4. Mauritius, after Maurice of Nassau

5. The Great Trigonometrical Survey, the project that measured the heights of Everest, K2 and Kanchejunga, demarcated the British territories in India

6. Henry Jones, better known as Indiana Jones

7. Prince Henry the Navigator; he is regarded as the main initiator of the Age of Discovery

8. Giovanni Caboto, known as John Cabot

9. Waldseemuller named the continents North and South America in honour of Amerigo Vespucci

10. Norwegian Roald Amundsen

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