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5000 BC ancient people took to the seas, historians hypothesize that they first used the sea as a source of food -
3200 BC Egyptians made their first voyage during reign of Pharaoh Snefru
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2750 BC the Egyptians traveled around the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea
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2000 BC-500 BC there is evidence of Polynesians culture and travel, some other records found with this suggest their culture is much older -
1200 BC the earliest Phoenician Ship was found by archeologist off the coast of turkey -
Greek Charts date to 800 BC
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Advanced greek ships to around 500 BC
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450 BC Herodotus made the first full map of the Mediterranean Sea -
Aristotle wrote of a diving bell apparatus in the 4th century BC about the renaissances in the 1500s -
790-1100 the Vikings invaded and conquered societies throughout Northern Europe and established new trade routes
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982 the first import voyage led by Eric the Red was the first transatlantic voyage and he discovered the Baffin Island region of Canada
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995 Eric’s son Leif Ericson ventured even further west to settle what is now Newfoundland, Canada which he named Vinland at the time -
800-1400 is referred to as the dark ages by many historians because europe seemed to go through a period of intellectual darkness -
1125 Chinese invented the compass and 275 years later the Europeans understood the compass
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1450 historians believe that the poor climate conditions resulted in the collapse of the Vikings settlements in Greenland and Iceland
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14th-17th century renaissance, explorers embarked on numerous long ocean voyages. Portuguese dominated early exploration with Prince Henry of Portugal who used a compass to attempt a route to the east but he reached the southern tip of Africa. -
1487 Bartolomeu Dias followed a similar route to Prince Henry's and became the first European the complete the voyage around the Cape of Good Hope -
1499 Vasco da Gama had made it all the way around the Cape of Good Hope and onto India
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1507 there was a map in honor of Amerigo Vespucci's achievements in the form of a map and the southern continent he discovered was labeled New World, South America.
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1535 Italian inventor named Guglielmo de Lorena built what historians believe to be the first diving bell -
1577 Francis Drake and his crew raided many Spanish settlements along the pacific coast of the Americas, he feared going back to through the Atlantic knowing that the Spanish would be awaiting his return so he went through Indonesia, around Southern Africa at the Cape of Good Hope -
1580 Francis Drake arrived home and was Knighted by Queen Elizabeth and riches for his journey.
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1768 James Cook’s first voyage, he saw New Zealand and observed that rather than being a part of Australia, New Zealand was completely separate
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1772 James Cook’s second voyage, his second voyage aboard the HMS Adventure and HMS Resolution he dealt with harsh winds and icebergs and eventually rounded the Cape of Good Hope.
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1778 James Cook’s third voyage, his most famous Voyage aboard HMS Resolution, took him into the Pacific Ocean where he discovered many islands including the Hawaiian Islands. He continued north until he encountered icebergs and was forced to turn back. -
1840 August Siebe developed hardhat diving helmets, the Augustus Siebe helmet gained a reputation for safety during its use on the wreck of the Royal George
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1878 Henry Fleuss developed the first scuba, which was a rebreather that recirculated pure oxygen while absorbing carbon dioxide through chemical reactions within tanks, divers realized this isn't safe and Fleuss’s initial SCUBA design fell out of favor.
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1893 Fram was stuck in the ice, Fridjotf Nansen set out to reach the North Pole and his ship, The Fram, got stuck in ice for 3 years. -
1925 German survey vessel meteor crossed the Atlantic Ocean 14 times during a two year voyage -
1930s William Beebe and Otis Barton created the first fully enclosed submersible
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1931 US dispatched its first oceanography research vessel RV Atlantis
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1932 UK launches its research vessel HMS Challenger II -
1943 famous ocean explore Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan developed a safer version of scuba -
1950 the British Royal Navy developed the first ROV named cutlet to recover practice torpedoes
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1951 challenger II crew measures deepest known point on earth in the Mariana trench, 35,558 feet below the surface
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1951 many nations starts collaborating on ocean research efforts -
1956 the DSV Alvin was built by General Mills' Electronics Group in Minneapolis, Minnesota. But it was not fully launched for a few more years -
1960s researchers Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard dove the Trieste to the challenger deep. An abyss over 36,000 feet down in the Mariana trench.
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1968 deep sea drilling project built Glomar challenger to drill into the ocean floor
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1975 start of the international program of ocean drilling project called JOIDES Resolution (Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling) a few years earlier in 1970 international decade of ocean exploration was declared -
1978 the US launched SEASAT the first dedicated oceanography satellite
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Late 1970s the US department of defense began using GPS to track objects on earth -
1980 Dr. Robert Ballard led expedition in North Atlantic ocean to find RMS titanic shipwreck
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1985 Dr. Robert Ballard discovered the wreckage and continued detailed research of the site until 1986 -
1987 NOAA created an underwater habitat called the Aquarius reef base off the coast of St. Croix in the Caribbean Ocean. Then in 1992 the moved the underwater habitat to Florida. -
1995 Clive Cussler discovered the Hunley wreckage off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina
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2000 the entire ship was bright to the surface and restored
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2001 NASA launched the jason-1 satellite with a mission to help study climate change by measuring variations in the ocean surface water topography -
2010 the US Navy lost four advs while conducting a study in the Chesapeake Bay -
2011 NASA launched the satellite Aquarius that will monitor sea surface salinity