Who Was Captain Cook?

Captain James Cook lived in the eighteenth Century (1728-1779) and was an explorer, mainly of the Pacific Ocean.  He made three great voyages, the first was to Tahiti in 1768 where he was to observe the planet Venus.  After Tahiti he sailed down to New Zealand and onto Australia.  He returned via New Guinea and Batavia.  
In 1772 he set out on his second voyage, this time to the South Pacific where he crossed the Antartic Circle and reached the Great Ice Barrier.  He did not find Antartica the continent though!
His final voyage in 1776 was to find the North West Passage, which was supposed to connect the Atlantic and Pacific.  On this voyage he discovered the Sandwich Islands, now known as Hawaii, but he was thwarted just off the coast of Alaska by a wall of ice.  He returned to Hawaii, but got involved in an argument with locals over who owned a small boat.  He was killed when a scuffle broke out.

There is a Captain Cook museum in Great Ayton, North Yorkshire.