Getty Images/iStockphotoChristopher Columbus gets a lot of airtime in textbooks and classrooms, but he wasn’t the only—or even the first—European to reach far-off shores. History is full of explorers whose discoveries were just as bold, and often more important, but who’ve slipped through the cracks of popular memory. Here are some lesser-known explorers who uncovered new lands, mapped unknown territories, and shaped the world in ways that deserve more recognition.
Zheng He: the Chinese admiral who sailed before Columbus
Between 1405 and 1433, decades before Columbus left Spain, Chinese admiral Zheng He led a massive fleet across the Indian Ocean. Commanding ships that dwarfed anything in Europe at the time, he visited modern-day Indonesia, India, Arabia, and East Africa.
Zheng He’s voyages were about diplomacy and trade rather than conquest, but his reach was astonishing. At the height of his expeditions, his armada had over 300 ships and 28,000 men. While his journeys didn’t result in colonisation, they did open up trade networks and cultural exchanges that lasted generations. And yet, he’s barely mentioned in Western histories of exploration.
Ibn Battuta: the Moroccan traveller who saw the medieval world
While Marco Polo gets name-dropped constantly, Ibn Battuta quietly travelled further and for longer. Starting in 1325, he journeyed for nearly 30 years, covering an estimated 75,000 miles. His route took him through North and West Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, Southeast Asia, and even parts of China.
His detailed travel notes offer some of the best records of life in the medieval Islamic world. Though he wasn’t a “discoverer” in the Columbus sense, Ibn Battuta’s journeys helped connect disparate cultures and provided a rare first-hand account of life across much of the known world.
Leif Erikson: the Norse explorer who beat Columbus to America
Roughly 500 years before Columbus set foot in the Caribbean, Leif Erikson, a Norse explorer from Iceland, landed in what’s now Newfoundland, Canada. According to Icelandic sagas, he named it Vinland and even attempted to establish a settlement there.
Erikson’s voyage is supported by archaeological evidence, including the remains of a Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows. Despite this, Columbus is still widely credited with “discovering” America, while Erikson remains a footnote. His journey shows that transatlantic exploration wasn’t exclusive to the Age of Discovery.
Ibn Majid: the navigator behind Vasco da Gama’s success
While Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama is celebrated for reaching India by sea in 1498, his voyage relied heavily on the expertise of Arab navigator Ibn Majid. A master seaman and author of several treatises on navigation, Ibn Majid is thought to have guided da Gama from the east coast of Africa to the shores of India.
Without this local knowledge, da Gama might never have made it. Yet in most Western histories, Ibn Majid is overlooked, despite his role in one of the most pivotal voyages of the early modern era.
Jeanne Baret: the first woman to circumnavigate the globe
Jeanne Baret disguised herself as a man to join the 1766 French expedition led by Louis Antoine de Bougainville. She served as a botanist’s assistant and ended up becoming the first woman to sail around the world, although she had to do it in secret.
Her contributions to botany were substantial. She helped collect and catalogue hundreds of plant species, many of which were unknown in Europe at the time. Her journey wasn’t officially recognised for decades, and her name rarely appears in exploration histories. But she was a trailblazer in every sense.
Pedro Álvares Cabral: the forgotten discoverer of Brazil
In 1500, Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral became the first European to land in Brazil, claiming it for Portugal. He then continued on to India, building on Vasco da Gama’s earlier route. His fleet’s journey helped establish a new Portuguese trade empire.
Despite these accomplishments, Cabral is far less well-known than his contemporaries. His discovery of Brazil, now the largest country in South America, was a turning point in colonial history. But outside Brazil and Portugal, he remains relatively obscure.
Pytheas of Massalia: the Greek who reached the Arctic
In the 4th century BCE, long before the Roman Empire reached its peak, a Greek explorer named Pytheas sailed from what is now Marseille to the far north of Europe. He reached the British Isles, navigated around them, and reportedly ventured as far as Iceland or possibly even the Arctic Circle. He described a mysterious land called “Thule,” which may have been Norway or Iceland.
His accounts of midnight sun, polar ice, and northern customs were dismissed by many ancient writers as fantasy, but later evidence has shown he likely saw things no other Mediterranean traveller had. Pytheas was centuries ahead of his time, and his journeys laid early foundations for understanding the geography of the north.
Abdul Rahman al-Sufi: the stargazer who mapped the heavens and the earth
While better known for his contributions to astronomy, Persian scholar Abdul Rahman al-Sufi (903–986) also travelled extensively across the Islamic world. His writings combined astronomical observation with geographical exploration, and he helped translate and expand upon ancient Greek knowledge.
Al-Sufi’s Book of Fixed Stars not only charted the sky but influenced how celestial navigation was used in seafaring, an essential tool for explorers centuries before the age of GPS. Though not an explorer in the traditional sense, his work made many journeys possible.
Hasekura Tsunenaga: the samurai who crossed continents
In the early 17th century, Hasekura Tsunenaga, a Japanese samurai, led a diplomatic mission from Japan to Mexico, Spain, and Rome, a journey that spanned oceans and cultures. He was one of the first Japanese emissaries to Europe, and his delegation crossed the Pacific, Atlantic, and Mediterranean.
Though his voyage was diplomatic rather than exploratory, Hasekura’s journey represented one of the earliest East-to-West connections during a time of growing isolation in Japan. His story remained largely forgotten in Japan until rediscovered in the 20th century.
History tends to simplify exploration into neat stories with a few heroic names. But the reality was much more complex, and global. The explorers on this list broke barriers, crossed oceans, and connected continents, often without the glory or recognition they deserved. They may not have statues in every city square, but they shaped the world all the same.
