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00:00Sure you want to go that way?
00:07Dear Tim and Moby, I've heard the Hudson River was named after some guy called Henry Hudson. Who was he?
00:21Thanks, Olive.
00:23Henry Hudson was the greatest explorer who never found what he was looking for.
00:29He was born in England sometime in the late 1500s.
00:32Back then, before planes or trains, people traded goods by boat.
00:37Traveling by sea could take forever, especially if you were going all the way to Asia.
00:43Silks and spices were worth their weight in gold, and the Far East was the only place to get them.
00:49Many people set sail to find these items during the Age of Exploration.
00:54This was a period when European explorers searched for trade routes, land, and riches.
01:00Reaching Asia by sea was cheaper and safer than the old Silk Road route.
01:06But many explorers believed there had to be a faster route than going all the way around Africa.
01:11So they turned their eyes west.
01:14They knew that since the Earth was round, if they sailed far enough west, they'd hit China.
01:20Right. In 1492, Christopher Columbus ran into a teeny tiny little problem with that plan.
01:27But the promise of a faster route to Asia didn't die there.
01:31More than a hundred years after Columbus, Henry Hudson was determined to find a way.
01:36Between 1607 and 1610, he led four voyages to try and find it.
01:42Everything we know about Henry Hudson's life comes from the journals he kept during those voyages.
01:48Nope, we don't know when he was born, or much else about him.
01:53That portrait of him? An artist made that up.
01:57We have no idea what he looked like.
02:01Well, let's just keep showing him how everyone else does.
02:06In 1607, Hudson convinced some English merchants to pay for a voyage to Asia.
02:11His idea was that he could get there by sailing north through the Arctic Ocean.
02:18Nope, they hadn't even reached the Arctic Ocean before icy conditions forced them to turn back.
02:25But Hudson convinced the same group of merchants to pay for a second mission.
02:30They made it a lot farther this time, but there was just too much sea ice.
02:35After this failure, Hudson lost his English backers.
02:40He turned to England's biggest trading competitor, the Dutch.
02:44Specifically, the Dutch East India Company, the largest company in the world at that time.
02:50They agreed to finance his third voyage, and gave Hudson a ship called the Half Moon.
02:55But as they were sailing through the Arctic...
02:58You guessed it, ice.
03:01This time, Hudson hit upon a new plan. Instead of sailing northeast, they would go northwest.
03:08See, back then, most of North America hadn't been mapped by Europeans.
03:13Many thought there must be a waterway leading all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
03:17They called this mythical route the Northwest Passage.
03:21Hudson's new plan was to be the first explorer to find it.
03:25He led his crew down the American coast, sailing into the mouth of a river.
03:29The Mahican people who lived nearby called it the Mahicanatuck River.
03:33Today, it's known as the Hudson River.
03:37This time, he was sure he'd found the way.
03:42Hudson didn't discover the river.
03:44The Mahican knew it well, and other Europeans had been there before.
03:48But Hudson was the first European to sail as far as he did.
03:53Still, about 150 miles in, the water grew too shallow to continue.
03:59When Hudson returned to Europe, England's King James I made him an offer.
04:04Leave the Dutch East India Company and find the Northwest Passage for England.
04:10Hudson agreed, and set out on his fourth voyage in 1610.
04:15Seeking another entrance to the Northwest Passage, he followed an inlet into northern Canada.
04:20In July, they reached a huge body of water, now known as Hudson Bay.
04:25They spent months mapping the coastline, but couldn't find a way west.
04:29And then, winter set in.
04:33Hudson Bay filled up with ice, blocking the way out.
04:37The crew was forced to drop anchor and stay for the season.
04:41Many of them blamed Hudson for their predicament.
04:44It took until the following June for the ice on the bay to melt.
04:48And by then, the crew was starving.
04:52Some were convinced that Hudson had a secret stash of food.
04:57So, even though they were heading home, the crew mutinied, rebelling against their captain.
05:03They forced Hudson, and those still loyal to him, onto a small boat.
05:07None of them were ever seen again.
05:10Okay, so Henry Hudson never found his way to Asia.
05:15And wasn't even the first European to find the Hudson River.
05:19Or most of the other bodies of water that carry his name.
05:23But his third expedition brought the Dutch to the New World.
05:27They settled along the Hudson River, and founded New York.
05:31England started colonies along the East Coast.
05:34These eventually became the United States.
05:38Later on, they used Hudson's last voyage as a basis to claim land in Canada.
05:44Today, Henry Hudson's name can be found on schools, bridges, towns, and waterways.
05:51In fact, there's more water named for Henry Hudson than for any other person in history.
05:58Um, if you really want to...