HMS Resolution Returns Without Cook: The Captain Killed in Hawaii
James Cook left on his third voyage in 1776 to find the Northwest Passage. He didn't find it. He was killed in Hawaii in February 1779 during a dispute over a stolen boat. His crew finished the voyage without him, reaching England in October 1780. The Resolution returned carrying the journals, charts, and observations of a man who had mapped more of the Pacific than anyone before him and never made it home. Cook's death in a skirmish on a beach that he'd visited before made no geographic sense. It happened anyway.
August 22, 1780
246 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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