American

Henry Tureman Allen (1859-1930)
  • Explored and mapped the Copper, Tanana, and Koyukuk Rivers in Alaska (1885)

Bernt Balchen (1899-1973)
  • Piloted the first flight over the South Pole with the Byrd expedition

William Becknell (1796-1865)
  • Established the Santa Fe Trail

Hiram Bingham (1875-1919)
  • Discovered the Inca villages of Machu Pichu and Vitcos and other setttlements in Peru (1907)

Louise Arner Boyd (1887-1972)
  • First woman to fly over the North Pole successfully

Richard Evelyn Byrd (1888-1957)
  • First to fly over the North Pole (1926)
  • Flew over the South Pole (1929)
  • Led five overland expeditions in Antarctica

Jesse Chisholm (1806-c1868)
  • Established one of the main paths of the yearly Texas cattle drives between the Mexican border and Abilene, Kansas, USA (1865)

William Clark (1770-1838)
  • With Meriwether Lewis, went on an expedition of exploration to the northwest of the United States (1803-1806)

John Colter (1775-1813)
  • First white man to explore the Teton Mountain Range (1807)

Herbert Spencer Dickey (1876-1948)
  • Discovered the source of the Orinoco River (1931)

Lincoln Ellsworth (1880-1951)
  • First man to fly across both the Arctic and the Antarctic

John Charles Frémont (1813-1890)
  • Surveryed much territory between the Mississippi River and the coast of California (1838-1848)

Charles Francis Hall (1821-1871)
  • Led Arctic expeditions (1860-1871)

Isaac Israel Hayes (1832-1881)
  • Led Arctic expeditions to prove the existence of navigable open seas around the North Pole (1860s)

Elisha Kent Kane (1820-1837)
  • Searched the Arctic for John Franklin, going farther than any previous expedition

Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809)
  • With William Clark, followed the Missouri River to its source, crossed the Rocky Mountains, followed the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, then returned to St. Louis overland (1803-1806)

Nathaniel Brown Palmer (1799-1877)
  • Discovered Palmer Land in Antarctica (1820)

Robert Edwin Peary (1856-1920)
  • First person (disputed) to reach the North Pole (1909)

Zebulon Montgomery Pike (1779-1813)
  • Explored the Arkansas River (1806)

Finn Ronne (1899-1980)
  • Made nine Antarctic trips, exploring over 3,600 miles by dog sled (1933+)

Frederik Schwatka (1849-1892)
  • Explored the Yukon River in Alaska

Jedediah Strong Smith (1799-1831)
  • Led an expedition across the US plains via the White River, the Dakota Badlands, the Black Hills, Bighorn Mountains, and Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River

Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904)
  • (John Rowlands)
  • With David Livingstone, explored Lake Tanganyika (1871)
  • Traced the course of the Congo River to the Atlantic Ocean (1884-1887)

Joseph Reddeford Walker (1798-1876)
  • First white man to lead a party across the Sierra Nevadas

Charles Wilkes (1798-1877)
  • Explored the South Pacific islands and the Antarctic continent (1839-1840)