On This Day In History: Crew Of Discovery Launches Mutiny Against Captain Henry Hudson – On June 22, 1611

AncientPages.com - On June 22, 1611, the crew of Discovery mutinies against its captain, English navigator Henry Hudson.

Two years earlier, in 1609, Captain Hudson sailed to the Americas to find his elusive Northwest Passage to China through the frozen wastes.

One of many speculative portraits of Henry Hudson, from Cyclopaedia of Universal History, 1885. Found, scanned, and uploaded to Wikipedia by Infrogmation on 5 November, 2003.

Captian Hudson made two unsuccessful sailing voyages in search of an ice-free passage to Asia. In 1609, he embarked on a third voyage funded by the Dutch East India Company that took him to the New World and the river that would be given his name. On his fourth voyage, Hudson came upon the body of water that would later be called the Hudson Bay.

Exploring the North American coast, he entered the present-day Chesapeake, Delaware, and New York bays, and then became the first European to ascend what is now called the Hudson River.

After repeatedly failing in his efforts to find a northeast ocean passage, the crew started to get tired of helping their captain. Mutineers put Hudson, his son and seven other men in a small boat and set them adrift. It is believed that Hudson and his men died of exposure sometime later, in or near the Hudson Bay. They were never to be seen again. Some of the mutineers were later put on trial, but they were acquitted.

Considered one of the world's most famous explorers, Henry Hudson, born in England circa 1565, never actually found what he was looking for. He spent his career searching for different routes to Asia, but he ended up opening the door to further exploration and settlement of North America.

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