The Gruesome Death Of Captain James Cook

On 14th February, 1779, Captain James Cook, one of Britain’s most celebrated navigators, was killed at Kealakekua Bay in the Hawaiian Kingdom. He was fifty years old. By the time of his death, Cook had already transformed European understanding of the Pacific Ocean, charting vast stretches of coastline and producing maps of remarkable accuracy. Yet his final encounter in Hawaii exposed the fragile and often volatile nature of first contact between Europeans and Indigenous societies. From...