Vitus Bering

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Vitus Bering bigraphy, stories - Danish explorer

Vitus Bering : biography

5 August 1681 – 8 December 1741

Vitus Jonassen Bering (baptised 5 August 1681 in Horsens, Denmark – 8 December 1741 on Bering Island, Russia,All dates are here given in the Julian calendar, which was in use throughout Russia at the time. also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering) was an explorer and officer in the Russian Navy. He is known for his two explorations of the north-eastern coast of the Asian continent and from there the western coast on the North American continent. The Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island, Bering Glacier and the Bering Land Bridge have since all been (posthumously) named in his honour.

Taking to the seas at the age of 18, Bering travelled extensively over the next eight years, as well as taking naval training at Amsterdam. In 1704, he enrolled with the rapidly expanding Russian navy of Peter the Great. After serving with the navy in significant but non-combat roles during the Great Northern War, Bering resigned in 1724 to avoid the continuing embarrassment of his low rank to Anna, his wife of eleven years. Having obtained a promotion on his retirement to the level of first captain, Bering kept this rank when he decided to rejoin the Russian navy later the same year. He was selected by Peter to captain the first Kamchatka expedition, an expedition set to sail north from Russian outposts on the Kamchatka peninsula, probably with the greatest emphasis on mapping the new areas visited (and particularly establishing Asia and America shared a land border). Bering departed St. Petersburg in February 1725 at the head of a 34-man expedition, aided by the expertise of lieutenants Martin Spangberg and Aleksei Chirikov. The party took on men as it headed towards Okhotsk, encountering many difficulties (most notably a lack of food) before they arrived in the settlement. From there, they sailed to the Kamchatka peninsula, preparing new ships there and sailing north (repeating a little documented journey of Semyon Dezhnyov eighty years previously). In August 1728, Bering decided that they had sufficient evidence that there was clear sea between Asia and America, which he did not sight during the trip. For the first expedition, Bering was rewarded with money, prestige, and a promotion to the noble rank of Captain Commander. He immediately started preparations for a second trip.

Having returned to Okhotsk with a much larger, better prepared, and much more ambitious expedition, Bering set off for an expedition towards North America in 1741. While doing so, the expedition spotted the volcano Mount Saint Elias, and sailed past Kodiak Island. A storm separated the ships, but Bering sighted the southern coast of Alaska, and a landing was made at Kayak Island or in the vicinity. Adverse conditions forced Bering to return, and he discovered some of the Aleutian Islands on his way back. One of the sailors died and was buried on one of these islands, and the group was named after him (as the Shumagin Islands). Bering himself became too ill to command his ship, which was at last driven to seek refuge on an uninhabited island in the Commander Islands group (Komandorskiye Ostrova) in the southwest Bering Sea. On 19 December 1741 Vitus Bering died on the island, which was given the name Bering Island after him, near the Kamchatka Peninsula, reportedly from scurvy (although this has been contestedThe 1991 Russian-Danish expedition that exhumed Bering’s remains also analyzed teeth and bones and concluded that he did not die from scurvy. Based on analyses made in Moscow and on Steller’s original report, heart failure was the likely cause of death .), along with 28 men of his company.

Biography

Early life

Vitus Bering was born in the port town of Horsens in Denmark to Anne Pedderdatter Bering and her husband Jonas Svendsen (a "customs inspector and churchwarden"), being baptised in the Lutheran church there on 5 August 1681. He was named after a maternal great-uncle, Vitus Pedersen Bering, who had been a chronicler in the royal court, and was not long deceased at the time of Vitus Jonassen Bering’s birth. The family enjoyed reasonable financial security, with two of Vitus’ elder half-brothers both attending the University of Copenhagen. Vitus, however, did not, and instead signed on at age 15 as a ship’s boy. Between 1696 and 1704, Bering travelled the seas, reaching India and the Dutch East Indies, whilst also finding time to complete naval officer training in Amsterdam. He would also claim later (and, it seems, not without some supporting evidence) to have served on Danish whalers in the North Atlantic, visiting European colonies in the Caribbean and on the eastern seaboard of North America. It was in Amsterdam, however, that in 1704 and under the guidance of Danish-born Russian admiral Cornelius Cruys, Bering enlisted with the Russian navy, taking the rank of sub-lieutenant. He would be repeatedly promoted in Peter the Great’s rapidly evolving navy, reaching the rank of second captain by 1720. In that time, it appears he was involved in no sea battles, but commanded several vessels in potentially dangerous missions, including the transport of a ship from the Azov Sea on Russia’s southern coast to the Baltic on her northern coast. His work in the latter stages of the Great Northern War (ending in 1721), for example, was dominated by lightering duties.