Examines fourteen of the greatest explorers and expeditions in history and explains the impact they had on people's perception of the world, in a book with unfolding cross sections.

On March 8, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. Its mission was "to proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas" and unite the whole world in Confucian harmony. When it returned in October 1423, the emperor had fallen, leaving China in political and economic chaos. The great ships were left to rot at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed....

Did a daring Chinese admiral sailing the world's largest wooden armada reach America 71 years before Columbus? This program examines the mystery surrounding the sailing exploits of the legendary Admiral Zheng He and his 30-year command of a Ming fleet.

Ethan Gage wants to enjoy the fruits of victory after helping Napoleon win the Battle of Marengo, but an ill-advised tryst with Bonaparte's married sister has made that impossible. So now, with President Thomas Jefferson's blessings, Ethan and a mystic Norwegian, Magnus Bloodhammer, embark upon an expedition into America's western wilderness--dodging hostile Indians and a British seductress as they search for the mythical hammer of the Norse god Thor....

When Columbus stepped ashore in 1492, millions of people were already living in America. It wasn't exactly a 'New World, ' but an old one whose inhabitants had built a vast infrastructure of cities, orchards, canals, and causeways. But after Columbus set foot in the Americas, an endless wave of explorers, conquistadors, and settlers arrived, and with each of their ships came a Noah's Ark of plants, animals, and disease. Here is an exploration into...

When Napoleon offered to sell French Louisiana, America was launched on a fateful and fraught journey west. Brands takes us from John Jacob Astor's fur trading outpost in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from the California gold rush to the Oklahoma land rush. Live in the west evoked both selfless heroism and unspeakable violence, against indigenous peoples and one another. It was soon evident that El Dorado was at least as elusive in the West as it...

The lure of the unknown and a love of adventure drew John Wesley Powell and his crew of nine to the last uncharted waters of the American west in 1869, Their goal: to be the first to ride the mighty Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and map its unexplored territory. Experience the explorers' harrowing descents through furious rapids and their wondrous discoveries on land as they overcome treacherous white eater, blistering heat, and near starvation,...