Exploration

Topic description and stories

A shaggy dog story: The contagious cancer that conquered the world

17 May 2016

A contagious form of cancer that can spread between dogs during mating has highlighted the extent to which dogs accompanied human travellers...

Left: James Wordie was chief scientific officer in Shackleton’s Weddell Sea party, which sought to walk across Antarctica via the South Pole in 1915. Right: Members of the Endurance South Pole 100 team training in the Cairngorms

Endurance descendants to mark centenary by completing ancestor’s unfinished business

18 Nov 2015

The family of the chief scientific officer from Ernest Shackleton’s famous Endurance expedition are to mark its centenary by completing part of his...

Sir Ernest Shackleton, pictured during the Endurance expedition

By Endurance We Conquer: Shackleton and his Men

13 Oct 2015

Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance diaries and boots – as well as the largest remaining piece of the doomed vessel – have gone on display in Cambridge...

Captain Scott writing in his Antarctic hut, before the expedition that cost him his life, Credit: Scott Polar Research Institute

Last letter of Captain Scott finally revealed in full - 101 years on

29 Mar 2013

A letter written by the dying Captain Scott - one of only two remaining in private hands - can be revealed in full for the first time after being...

Bernardo Bellotto (Canaletto) A View at the Entrance of the Grand Canal, Venice, c.1741 Oil on canvas, 59.3 cm x 94.9 cm (detail), Credit: © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Lessons from history: how Europe did (and didn’t) grow rich

24 Mar 2013

The Industrial Revolution is seen as the spark that lit Europe’s economic prosperity. In her analysis of markets over many hundreds of years...

A portrait of John Lewis Burckhardt from his ‘Travels in Syria and the Holy Land’.

The man who discovered a ‘lost’ wonder of the world

22 Aug 2012

Among the numerous treasures at Cambridge University Library are the private documents of the explorer, John Lewis Burckhardt, who rediscovered Petra...

One of the pages from the South Polar Times, written by members of the Terra Nova team, 1912

Final newspaper of Captain Scott’s doomed expedition reproduced

31 Mar 2011

The last volume of the expedition newspaper, South Polar Times, written by the men waiting for news of Captain Scott’s return from the South Pole in...

Lunar Meanderings (audio slideshow)

15 Nov 2010 Read more