An IT consultant who found twelve boys alive in a flooded cave after nine days of searching
A British cave diver and IT consultant who, with Rick Stanton, located twelve boys and their coach alive deep inside a flooded Thai cave in 2018 and…
First person to sail alone around the world, in a rebuilt oyster boat, when steam had ended his career
A washed-up sailing captain in his fifties who rebuilt a rotting sloop with his own hands, set off alone in 1895, and came home three years later…
Raised in a closed religious cult across dozens of countries, she cycled around the world alone as an adult
Raised inside the Children of God religious group across many countries with little formal education, she left as an adult and in 2012 became the…
Dug out of an avalanche at 6,300 metres, she carried on and became the first woman to climb Everest
A small, sickly child who was told women should stay home, she founded a women’s climbing club, reached the top of Everest in 1975 and kept climbing…
Has climbed Everest more times than anyone alive and keeps doing it for a living wage
A mountain guide from a family of climbers, he has summited Everest more times than any other person on record, work that supports his family but…
The first American woman to walk in space, and later the first person to also touch its deepest opposite
A geologist and astronaut who became the first American woman to walk in space in 1984, and in 2020 the first woman to reach the deepest point of the…
Sold into slavery mid-mission, he still finished the survey no one believed for thirty years
A Lepcha tailor recruited as a secret surveyor for British India, he was betrayed and sold into slavery in Tibet yet still completed a mission to…
Given away as a slave twice over, her fluency in three languages reshaped an empire's fate
Sold into slavery as a child and later given to Hernan Cortes, she became his indispensable interpreter during the conquest of the Aztec empire, a…
Climbed Everest more times than any other woman while working as a dishwasher to raise her children
A Nepali mountaineer who holds the record for the most Everest summits by any woman, achieved largely while working long hours in low-paid jobs in…
Doctor, engineer and dancer who became the first Black woman to fly in space
She entered Stanford at sixteen, served as a Peace Corps doctor in West Africa, flew on the shuttle Endeavour in 1992 and left NASA soon after to…
Nursed her parents until thirty, then went to West Africa alone to collect fish and argue with missionaries
Self-taught from her father’s library, she paddled through the Ogooué rapids, climbed Mount Cameroon by an unclimbed route and defended African…
Charted the coast of Australia, was imprisoned for six years on the way home, and named the continent
A Lincolnshire surgeon’s son who circumnavigated Australia in a rotting ship, spent six years detained on Mauritius, and lived just long enough to…
The Black explorer who reached the North Pole with Peary and spent thirty years being forgotten
Orphaned young and sent to sea at twelve, he became the most skilled sledge driver and Inuit speaker on Peary’s expeditions, stood at the Pole in…
Escaped captivity to find the Niger flowing the wrong way, then went back and never came home
A Scottish surgeon who survived four months as a prisoner to reach and chart the Niger River, then died on a second, disastrous expedition that…
A village schoolteacher who mapped Tibet in secret by counting his steps on a string of prayer beads
Recruited by the British Survey of India when Europeans were barred from Tibet, he walked over a thousand miles disguised as a pilgrim, fixed the…
A shy student who reached the North Pole alone by dog sledge and vanished on a winter mountain
He rafted the Amazon alone, climbed the highest peaks on five continents, and drove dogs 7,500 miles across the Arctic, always by himself because he…
A Persian official who had a dream, gave up wine, and walked seven years to Mecca and Cairo
A Persian court official who abandoned his career after a spiritual crisis, he spent seven years travelling on foot and by caravan through Persia,…
Faked madness to expose an asylum, then beat Jules Verne's fictional trip around the world
A journalist who had herself committed to an asylum to expose its abuses, then in 1889 raced around the globe alone in seventy-two days, beating a…
Climbed all fourteen of the world's highest mountains in barely six months, a task once thought decades
A former Gurkha and special forces soldier who set out to climb all fourteen of the world's 8,000-metre peaks and did it in just over six months, a…
The first Nepali woman on the summit of Everest, on her fourth attempt, who did not come down
Told by officials and sponsors that a Nepali woman had no place on Everest, she tried three times, reached the top in April 1993 and died on the…
A meticulous surveyor whose search for a lost city ended in the Amazon and never explained itself
A British surveyor who mapped remote South American borders for years, then vanished with his son in the Amazon searching for an ancient city he…
Set out from Beijing on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and ended up negotiating with kings of Europe
A Nestorian Christian monk born near Beijing, he set out to visit Jerusalem and was instead sent by the Mongol court as an ambassador, meeting the…
Lost his brother and seven toes on Nanga Parbat, then rewrote what was thought possible at altitude
The South Tyrolean who climbed Everest without bottled oxygen, then alone, and became the first person to climb all fourteen of the world’s…
A poor, self-taught Frenchman who reached Timbuktu alone and lived to tell of it
Orphaned and poor, he taught himself Arabic and travelled disguised as a Muslim trader to become the first European known to reach Timbuktu and…
