1553: English expedition led by Hugh Willoughby with Richard Chancellor as second in command searches for the Northeast Passage
1557: English expedition led by Stephen Borough reaches the Kara Strait
1576–1578: English expeditions led by Martin Frobisher reach Baffin Island
1579: Danish-Norwegian expedition led by James Alday fails to reach Greenland due to ice
1580: English expedition led by Arthur Pet and Charles Jackman reaches the Kara Sea
1581: Danish-Norwegian expedition led by Magnus Heinason fails to reach Greenland due to ice
1585–1587: English expeditions led by John Davis explore the Davis Strait–Baffin Bay region and reach Upernavik
1594: Dutch expedition led by Willem Barentsz, Cornelis Nay and Brandt Tetgales reaches the Kara Sea via Yugorsky Strait
1595: Dutch expedition led by Cornelis Nay fails to make further progress towards a Northeast Passage than in the previous year
1596–1597: Dutch expedition piloted by Willem Barentsz discovers Spitsbergen and registered the first recorded Farthest North
17th century
Thomas Button
1605–1607: Danish-Norwegian king, Christian IV of Denmark, sends three expeditions led by John Cunningham, Godske Lindenov and Carsten Richardson (all piloted by James Hall), to search for the lost Eastern Settlement, one of the Norse colonies on Greenland
1606: John Knight, who had captained the Katten in 1605 with John Cunningham, dies commanding a joint Muscovy Company/East India Company expedition in search of the Northwest Passage
1607: Henry Hudson explores Spitsbergen
1608: Henry Hudson gets as far as Novaya Zemlya in his attempt to find the Northeast Passage
1609: another unsuccessful attempt by Henry Hudson at finding the Northeast Passage
1610: Jonas Poole thoroughly explores Spitsbergen's west coast, reporting that he saw a "great store of whales"; this report leads to the establishment of the English whaling trade
1610: Russian Kondratiy Kurochkin explores the mouth of the Yenisei River and the adjoining coast
1610–1611: Henry Hudson reaches Hudson Bay in an attempt to find the Northwest Passage
1612: James Hall and William Baffin explore southwest Greenland
1612–1613: Button expedition, commanded by Thomas Button, in search of the Northwest Passage
1613: Several whaling expeditions, consisting of a total of at least thirty ships from England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands crowd Spitsbergen's west coast
1614: Dutch and French expeditions discover Jan Mayen
1615: Robert Fotherby, in the pinnace Richard, is the first English expedition to reach Jan Mayen
1615: English expedition captained by Robert Bylot and piloted by William Baffin reaches the Foxe Basin in search of the Northwest Passage
1616: English expedition captained by Robert Bylot and piloted by William Baffin explores the Davis Strait–Baffin Bay region
1619–1620: Danish-Norwegian expedition led by Jens Munk in Enhiörningen (Unicorn) and Lamprenen (Lamprey) to discover the Northwest Passage penetrated Davis Strait as far north as 69°, found Frobisher Bay, spent a winter in Hudson Bay
1633–1634: I. Rebrov explores the mouth of the Lena River
1633–1635: Ilya Perfilyev explores the Lena and Yana Rivers and intervening coast
1638: I. Rebrov explores coast between the Lena and Indigirka Rivers
1641: Dimitry Zyryan and Mikhail Stadukhin explore the mouth of the Indigirka River and adjoining coast
1646: I. Ignatyev explores the mouth of the Kolyma River and adjoining coast
1648: Ya. Semyonov explores the mouth of Kotuy River and adjoining coast
1648: Semyon Dezhnev and Fedot Alekseyevich Popov explore from the Kolyma River through the Bering Strait
1649: Mikhail Stadukhin explores the coast from the Kolyma River to the Bering Strait
1676: English expedition led by John Wood fails to find the Northeast Passage
1686–1687: Ivan Tolstoukhov expedition explores the mouth of the Yenisey River and the coast of the Taymyr Peninsula
18th century
Vasily Chichagov
1712: Merkury Vagin and Yakov Permyakov explore the vicinity of the mouth of the Yana River and adjoining coasts, both were murdered by mutineering expedition members
1776–1780: James Cook charts the northwestern coast of America and sails through the Bering Strait during his third voyage in search of the Northwest Passage
1785–1794: Russian expedition led by Joseph Billings explores Eastern Siberia, the Aleutian Islands, and the west coast of Alaska
1789: Alexander Mackenzie traces the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean
19th century
Ferdinand von Wrangel
John Rae
J. A. D. Jensen
Salomon August Andrée
Early Period (1800–1818)
1800: Yakov Sannikov charts Stolbovoy Island
1809–1811: Yakov Sannikov and Matvei Gedenschtrom explore the New Siberian Islands
1815–1818: Otto von Kotzebue explores the Bering Strait during the Rurik expedition [de]
Ross, Parry and Franklin (1818–1846)
1818: Royal Navy expedition led by captain David Buchan sails north from Spitsbergen[3]
1818: Royal Navy expedition led by John Ross with his nephew James Clark Ross, sails north along the west coast of Greenland to Pituffik in search of the Northwest Passage and encounters the Inughuit (Greenlandic Inuit) of Cape York
1819: Royal Navy expedition aboard HMS Hecla and HMS Griper led by William Edward Parry in search of the Northwest Passage[4]
1819–1822: The Coppermine expedition in northern Canada, led by John Franklin, includes George Back and John Richardson
1820s
1820–1824: Ferdinand von Wrangel and Fyodor Matyushkin explore the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea areas
1821–1824: Fyodor Litke explores the eastern Barents Sea and the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, including Matochkin Strait
1821–1823: Pyotr Anjou continues exploration of New Siberian Islands
1822: William Scoresby lands in east Greenland near the mouth of the fjord system that would later be named for him – Scoresby Sound
1823: Douglas Clavering and Edward Sabine explore East Greenland northwards to Clavering Island, where they get in contact with the now extinct Inuit of Northeast Greenland
1825–1827: The Mackenzie River expedition descends the Mackenzie River and maps much of the Arctic coast
1826: Frederick William Beechey aboard HMS Blossom explores the Alaskan coast from Point Barrow to the Bering Strait
1827: First Norwegian expedition to the Arctic, led by Baltazar Mathias Keilhau
1827: Royal Navy expedition to Spitsbergen led by William Edward Parry reaches 82°45′ N[5]
1828–1830: Danish expedition led by Wilhelm August Graah tries to locate the Eastern Settlement in southeast Greenland, but does not reach Ammassalik Island.
1829–1833: Royal Navy expedition led by John Ross to search for the Northwest Passage explores James Ross Strait and King William Land, locates the North Magnetic Pole
1830s and 1840s
1832–1835: Pyotr Pakhtusov explores the southern half of the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya
1833–1835: Royal Navy expedition led by George Back from Fort Reliance to the mouth of the Back River at Chantrey Inlet[6]
1836: George Back attempts to ascertain if Boothia Peninsula is an island or a peninsula but his ship, HMS Terror, is trapped by ice near Southampton Island[7]
1837: Karl Ernst von Baer leads a natural history expedition to Novaya Zemlya
1838–1839: Avgust Tsivolko leads an expedition to Novaya Zemlya, primarily for surveying
1838–1840: La Recherche expedition, under the command of Joseph Paul Gaimard, a scientific venture to explore the islands in the North Atlantic
1845: Franklin's Northwest Passage expedition is sent to map the remaining Northwest Passage
1849: Henry Kellett discovers Herald Island searching for Franklin's lost expedition
1850–1854: McClure Arctic expedition led by Robert McClure, a British search for the members of Franklin's lost expedition
1850–1851: First Grinnell expedition led by Edwin De Haven, the first American search for the members of Franklin's lost expedition, finds the graves of crew members John Torrington, William Braine and John Hartnell on Beechey Island
1851: William Kennedy leads a search expedition for Franklin in the Prince Albert, sponsored by Lady Franklin
1852: Edward Augustus Inglefield sets out to search for Franklin's ill-fated expedition in the Isabel, also sponsored by Jane Franklin
1857–1859: McClintock Arctic expedition led by Francis Leopold McClintock is the fifth expedition sponsored by Lady Franklin and finds artefacts, a crew member's skeleton and the final written communications from the last survivors of the Franklin expedition
Nordenskiöld Period (1857–1879)
1858: Swedish expedition to Spitsbergen led by Otto Martin Torell
1860s
1860: Paul A. Chadbourne, a Williams College professor, conducts the Williams College Lyceum of Natural History expedition to Greenland.[9]
1860–1861: American Arctic Expedition led by Isaac Israel Hayes who claims to see the Open Polar Sea
1860–1862: First expedition led by American Charles Francis Hall searching for Franklin
1861: Swedish expedition to Svalbard led by Otto Martin Torell explores Hinlopen Strait and the north coast of Nordaustlandet
1861–1862: Otto Paul von Krusenstern's expedition through the Kara Sea on the Yermak
1864: Swedish expedition to Svalbard led by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld
1864–1869: Charles Francis Hall leads his second expedition to determine the fate of Franklin, to King William Island
1867: Edward Whymper and Robert Brown attempt to explore the inland ice of Greenland
1876: Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld repeats his voyage to the Yenisey
1876–1878: Norwegian Northern Seas expedition in Vøringen explored the Northern Atlantic up to 80°N
1877–1878: Henry W. Howgate leads the Howgate Preliminary Polar Expedition to promote scientific experiments, and whaling as a source of revenue
1878: J. A. D. Jensen explores the inland ice sheet from west Greenland
1878–1881: different voyages with Dutch polar schooner Willem Barents in the area around Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya, organised by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society
1878–1879: Swedish Vega expedition led by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld completes the Northeast Passage
Race for the Pole (1879–1900)
1879–1882: Jeannette expedition commanded by George W. De Long attempts to reach the North Pole by sea from the Bering Strait
1880: Henry W. Howgate leads the Howgate Arctic expedition for scientific and geographical exploration of Greenland
1880: Benjamin Leigh Smith's fourth expedition explores the southwestern area of Franz Josef Land
1881–1882: Benjamin Leigh Smith's final expedition is shipwrecked in Franz Josef Land
1882–1883: The Danish Dijmphna expedition travels to the territory between Russia and the North Pole
1883–1885: Umiak expedition, led by Gustav Frederik Holm and Thomas Vilhelm Garde along the southeastern coast of Greenland in the shallow waters between the coast and the sea ice
1883: Failed attempt by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld to cross Greenland from the west
1886: Failed attempt by Robert Peary to cross Greenland
1888–1889: First successful crossing of the Greenland inland ice by the Norwegian expedition led by Fridtjof Nansen (from east to west)
1890s
1891–1892: The East Greenland expedition on the Hekla led by Carl Ryder fails to get through the sea ice of east Greenland, but explores the Scoresby Sound system in detail
1894 Failed attempt by Walter Wellman to reach the North Pole from Svalbard
1894–1897: Jackson–Harmsworth expedition, led by Frederick George Jackson, explores Franz Josef Land hoping in vain to find more land polewards
1895-1896: Ingolf expedition, hydrographical and biological studies in the waters around Greenland, Iceland and Jan Mayen
1897: Salomon August Andrée leads a failed three man Arctic balloon expedition in an attempt to reach the Pole, Andrée along with Knut Frænkel and Nils Strindberg die
1898–1899: Failed attempt by Walter Wellman to reach the North Pole from Franz Josef Land
1898–1902: Second Fram voyage by Otto Sverdrup explores the North American Arctic around Ellesmere Island
1898-1902: Peary's Sixth Expedition and first attempt at the North Pole
1898–1900: The Carlsbergfund expedition to East Greenland led by Georg Carl Amdrup explores the Blosseville Coast
1899: Alfred Gabriel Nathorst explores the fjords of northeast Greenland, in particular the King Oscar Fjord system
1902–1904: The Literary expedition led by Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen together with Knud Rasmussen explores the northwest Greenland coast between Uummannaq and Thule
1903–1906: Roald Amundsen's Gjøa expedition – first Northwest Passage traversal
1905–1906: North Pole expedition led by Robert Peary, from Ellesmere Island
1906–1908: The Danmark Expedition led by Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, mapped the last unknown areas of Northeast Greenland, but ended fatally for the main exploring team
1906, 1907, 1909: The airship America and Walter Wellman
1906–1908: Anglo-American Polar expedition (Ejnar Mikkelsen–Ernest de Koven Leffingwell expedition)
1907: Johan Peter Koch and Aage Bertelsen report seeing Fata Morgana Land, a phantom island off the coast of northeast Greenland
Disputed Polar Claims
1907–1909: US North Pole expedition led by Frederick Cook claims to be the first to reach the pole
1908: expedition led by Charles Bénard explores Novaya Zemlya
1908–1909: expedition led by Robert Peary also claims reaching the North Pole first
1909–1912: The Alabama expedition to northeast Greenland led by Ejnar Mikkelsen in an operation to recover bodies and logs of the ill-fated Danmark expedition
1910–1915: Russian Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition in Taymyr and Vaygach
1912: First Thule expedition – Knud Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen explores North Greenland and establishes that Peary Land is not an island
1912: Swiss expedition led by Alfred de Quervain crosses Greenland by dog-sled
1919: Third Thule expedition – Knud Rasmussen explores north Greenland and lays out depots for Roald Amundsen's polar drift in Maud
1919–1920: Fourth Thule expedition – Knud Rasmussen explores east Greenland
1921–1923: Bicentenary Jubilee expedition led by Lauge Koch explores north Greenland
1921–1923: Wrangel Island Expedition – a land claim and colonisation attempt conceived, but not led by Vilhjalmur Stefansson – all members die apart from Iñupiat seamstress and cook Ada Blackjack
1921–1924: Fifth Thule expedition led by Knud Rasmussen crossing the Northwest Passage on dog sledges from Thule across Arctic Canada to Nome, Alaska demonstrates how Inuit culture could spread rapidly
1924: Oxford University Arctic Expedition led by George Binney, uses a seaplane to assist in the first traverse of Nordaustlandet
Byrd and the Aircraft Age (1925–1958)
1925: Flying boat expedition led by Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth
1926: Aircraft flight by Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett
Polar Conquest
1926: The airship Norge (Roald Amundsen, Umberto Nobile and Lincoln Ellsworth) becomes the first verified trip to the North Pole
1928: Carl Ben Eielson–Hubert Wilkins Arctic Ocean crossing
1928: The airship Italia (Umberto Nobile); airship crashed, but Nobile was rescued
1928: Roald Amundsen disappears in the Arctic aboard a Latham 47 while searching for Nobile
1928: Marion expedition to Davis Strait and Baffin Bay
1930–1931: Alfred Wegener's German Greenland Expedition that led to his death on the Greenland ice sheet, halfway between Eismitte and West Camp
1930: Bratvaag Expedition, led by Gunnar Horn to Franz Josef Land, found long lost remains of Salomon August Andrée's expedition
1930–1931: British Arctic Air Route Expedition was an expedition, led by Gino Watkins, that aimed to draw improved maps and charts of poorly surveyed sections of Greenland's coastline
1931: Successful research trip by airship Graf Zeppelin led by Hugo Eckener
1931: Sir Hubert Wilkins with submarine Nautilus (failed 800 km (500 mi) south of the pole)
1931: Sixth Thule expedition led by Knud Rasmussen explores northeast Greenland
1931: Arne Høygaard and Martin Mehren cross Greenland by dog-sled
1932: Icebreaker A. Sibiryakov makes the successful crossing of the Northern Sea Route in a single navigation without wintering
1932–1933: East Greenland expedition, also known as the Pan Am expedition, a four-man expedition to continue the work of the British Arctic Air Route Expedition
1932–1933: Dalstroy expedition to the Kolyma River in a convoy headed by the icebreaker Fyodor Litke
1933: Russian steamship SS Chelyuskin managed to get through most of the Northern Route before it was caught in the ice in September
1934: British Trans-Greenland Expedition led by Martin Lindsay
1935: Ushakov Island, the last piece of undiscovered territory in the Soviet Arctic, was found by Georgy Ushakov aboard the Sadko
1935: French expedition led by Paul-Émile Victor crosses Greenland by dog-sled
1937: Soviet aircraft Tupolev ANT-25 made several transpolar flights
Era of Satellites, Submarines and Icebreakers (1958–onward)
1958: USS Nautilus (SSN-571) crosses the Arctic Ocean from the Pacific to the Atlantic beneath the polar sea ice, reaching the North Pole on 3 August 1958
1959: Discoverer 1, a prototype with no camera, is the first satellite in polar orbit[10]
1959: USS Skate (SSN-578) becomes first submarine to surface at the North Pole on 17 March 1959
1968: Ralph Plaisted and three others reach the North Pole by snowmobile and are the first confirmed overland conquest of the Pole
1968–1969: Wally Herbert, British explorer, reaches Pole on foot and traverses the Arctic Ocean
1971: Former football player Tony Dauksza becomes the first person to traverse the Northwest Passage in a canoe
1977: Arktika, nuclear-powered icebreaker, reaches the North Pole
1979–1982: Kenichi Horie in Mermaid, was the first person to sail the Northwest Passage solo
1982: As part of the Transglobe Expedition Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Charles R. Burton cross the Arctic Ocean in a single season
1986: Will Steger and party reach the north pole by dog sled without resupply
1986–1989: David Scott Cowper became the first person to have completed the Northwest Passage single-handed as part of a circumnavigation of the world
1988: Will Steger completes first south–north traverse of Greenland
1988: Soviet–Canadian 1988 Polar Bridge Expedition a group of thirteen Russian and Canadian skiers set out from Siberia skiing to Canada over the North Pole aided by satellites.
1991-1992: Lonnie Dupre completes first west to east winter crossing of arctic Canada traveling by dog team from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska via the northwest passage before turning south ending in Churchill, Manitoba. The 3000-mile journey started in October and ended in April.
1992: Crossing of the Greenland inland ice from east to west by a Japanese expedition led by Kenji Yoshikawa
1993–1994: Pam Flowers dog sledded alone2,500 mi (4,000 km) from Barrow, Alaska, to Repulse Bay (Naujaat), Canada[12]
1994: Shane Lundgren led expedition that began in Moscow and proceeded north of the Arctic Circle across Siberia to Magadan
1995: Marek Kamiński and Wojciech Moskal reached the North Pole on 23 May 1995 (27 December 1995, Marek Kamiński reached the South Pole alone)
21st century
Fiann Paul, Alex Gregory and Carlo Facchino ocean rowing aboard Polar Row.
2000: Ukrainian parachute expedition to the North Pole
2001: Lonnie Dupre with teammate John Holescher complete the first circumnavigation of Greenland, a 6,500 mile, all non-motorized journey by kayak and dog team.[citation needed]
2002: Jean Lemire and the crew of the Sedna IV successfully navigate the Northwest Passage on a three-mast schooner, sailing from Montreal to Vancouver in five months while filming La grande traversée and four other documentaries about the effects of global warming on the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (at the time, only the seventh sailboat in history to make the legendary Northwest Passage from east to west)[13]
2003: Pen Hadow makes solo trek from Canada to North Pole without resupply[14]
2004: Five members of the Ice Warrior Squad reach the Geomagnetic North Pole, including the first two women in history to do so.[citation needed]
2007: Arktika 2007, Russian submersible descends to the ocean floor below the North Pole from the Akademik Fyodorov
2007: Top Gear: Polar Special, BBC's Top Gear team are the first to reach the magnetic North Pole in a car
2007: The Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition uses Mars analog sites on Svalbard for testing of science questions and payload instruments onboard Mars missions
2008: Alex Hibbert and George Bullard complete the Tiso Trans Greenland expedition. The longest fully unsupported land Arctic journey in history at 1,374 mi (2,211 km)[citation needed]
2009: David Scott Cowper becomes the only person to have sailed the Northwest Passage solo in a single season.[citation needed]
2011: MLAE-2011 led by Vasily Igorevich Yelagin travelled from Dudinka, Russia – North Pole – Resolute, Nunavut, Canada
2011: Old Pulteney Row To The Pole, a publicity stunt sponsored by Old Pulteney whisky, organised by Jock Wishart who also operated the Polar Race
2015: Interdisciplinary Arctic Expedition "Kartesh" – complex arctic expedition, organized by the Polar Expedition Gallery project (later rebranded as Polar Expedition "Kartesh") in collaboration with the LMSU Marine Research Center. Research tasks: assessing the Arctic coastline vulnerability towards human impact; marine and coastal ecosystem and Arctic seas landform condition monitoring; West Arctic biodiversity research; oil oxidizing microorganism activity research; testing new methods of water areas remote sensing.[citation needed]
2017: Polar Row, led by Fiann Paul, is the world's most record-breaking expedition (14 Guinness World Records). The team covered 1440 miles measured in a straight line in the Arctic Ocean open waters in a row boat and pioneered ocean rowing routes from Tromsø to Longyearbyen, from Longyearbyen to Arctic Ice Pack (79º55'500 N) and from the Arctic ice pack to Jan Mayen.[15][16]
2019: MOSAiC Expedition under the direction of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research with 300 scientists from 20 nations on board the German ice-breaker Polarstern to collect data about the ocean, the ice, the atmosphere and life in the Arctic in order to understand climate change