He was born in Marton in Yorkshire, England. His dad was named James Cook, and his mom was Grace Pace. Captain Cook had 6 brothers and sisters.
He was at age 15 when he started sailing on a collier, that trip ended when he was 19. He sailed in the coal trade. The collier almost crashed a number of times because of sunken rocks, iceburgs, and sandpits.
The war was called the Seven Years War. In 1757, Cook was a master of a 64 gun war ship. He learned how to survey from an army engineer and then he asked the captain if he could do the survey's by himself.
Cook had been gone for 4 years, he was 34 and he married 22-year old Elizabeth Batts. They were married in 6 weeks. When Cook was gone Elizabeth Batts gave birth to 2 boys ones name is James, the other one is Nathaniel. He had 5 kids but only 2 survived, James and Nathaniel.
On his first voyage on the ship Endeavour, his main goal was to see the Transit of Venus. He was successful in seeing Venus cross the Sun. Another big success was him being the first person to prevented his crew from getting scurvy. Cook heard that eating fruits helped stop scurvy and made them eat different fruits whether or not they liked it. His third big accomplishment was him mapping and sailing to Australia. While there he did get stuck in the Great Barrier Reef but was able to continue.
One problem Cook faced was having 30 crew members die from of Malaria. I think that Cook's first voyage was successful because he accomplished his goal of seeing the Transit of Venus, he also had other discoveries, and made it home safely. He was the most famous explorer in Australian history.
On his second voyage he crossed the Antarctic Circle, he was trying to discover if there was another continent at the south pole. He also updated all the charts and maps for that area. On his ships he had many scientists to help him.
A challenge that Cook faced was that the two ships got separated twice. I think that Cook's second voyage was successful because his ship (the Resolution) was the first to cross the Antarctic. The other ship (the Adventure) was the first to sail around the world east to west.
In Cook's third, and final, voyage he set out on the ship Resolution in search of the Northwest Passage. Cook was the first person to reach the Bering Strait, what separates Siberia Russia and Alaska, the farthest western point of North America. In the winter Cook had to give up on looking for the Northwest Passage because his boat would get stuck in the ice. He went south and faced his biggest challenge back in the Hawaiian islands. He ended up getting killed by local tribesmen.
When he landed on present-day Hawaii, he named it the Sandwich Islands, after his best mate, Erick Sandwich. During a battle with the locals he was clubbed to death.
His crew continued the voyage and did make it back to England in 1780. It was not that successful of a journey because they did not find the Northwest Passage and Cook and four of his men were killed.
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