Santa Maria

Model of the Santa Maria. (Credit: SPL/Getty Images) Santa Maria Christopher Columbus famously set sail on his first voyage to the New ...

Tolstoy’s wife helped get “War and Peace” over the finish line.

Tolstoy’s wife, Sophia, in 1885. (Credit:: Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images) Tolstoy’s wife helped get “War and Peace” over the finish lin...

Tolstoy was a self-improvement junkie.

Tolstoy circa 1855. (Credit: Imagno/Getty Images) [Der russische Autor Lew Nikolajewitsch Tolstoj. Photographie. Um 1855.] Tolstoy circa 185...

Clark adopted Sacagawea’s children.

Clark adopted Sacagawea’s children. During her time with the Corps of Discovery, Sacagawea was accompanied by her newborn son, Jean Bapti...

Lewis later died under mysterious circumstances.

Meriwether Lewis. (Credit: Universal History Archive/Getty Images) Lewis battled depression and mood swings for most of his life, and his c...

Only one member of the expedition died during the trip.

Only one member of the expedition died during the trip. The Lewis and Clark expedition suffered its first fatality in August 1804, when S...

Sacagawea reunited with her long lost brother during the journey.

  “Lewis & Clark at Three Forks,” mural in lobby of Montana House of Representatives. (Credit: Edgar Samuel Paxson) One of the most le...

Lewis and Clark’s arsenal included 200 pounds of gunpowder and an experimental air rifle.

Lewis and Clark’s arsenal included 200 pounds of gunpowder and an experimental air rifle. The Corps of Discovery carried one of the large...

Clark brought his slave on the journey.

York statue by Ed Hamilton. (Credit: Dennis Macdonald/Getty Images) Along with more than two-dozen enlisted men and officers, the Corps of ...

The Spanish sent soldiers to arrest the expedition.

The Spanish sent soldiers to arrest the expedition. Jefferson often described Lewis and Clark’s expedition as a scientific mission to stu...

Thomas Jefferson believed the expedition might encounter wooly mammoths.

Woolly Mammoth. (Credit: Royal BC Museum, Victoria, British Columbia) Before Lewis and Clark completed their expedition, Americans could on...

Lewis had served as Thomas Jefferson’s secretary.

Lewis had served as Thomas Jefferson’s secretary. In 1801, Lewis left the army and accepted an invitation to serve as Thomas Jefferson’s ...

Lewis first met Clark after being court-martialed by the Army.

Lewis (L) and Clark (R). (Credit: Jean-Erick PASQUIER/Getty Images) While serving as a frontier army officer in 1795, a young Meriwether Le...

Lewis and Clark Expedition

In May 1804, President Thomas Jefferson dispatched Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s Corps of Discovery on an expedition to explore the L...