Vitus Bering

Vitus Jonassen Bering was born on August 5, 1681, in Horsens, Jutland. Going to sea as a boy, he joined the Imperial Russian Navy in 1704 under Peter the Great, distinguishing himself in the Great Northern War.

Peter the Great selected Bering to lead the First Kamchatka Expedition (1725–1730) to determine whether Asia and North America were connected. In 1728, Bering sailed through the narrow strait that now bears his name into the Arctic Ocean. Leading the massive Great Northern Expedition (1733–1741), Bering became the first European to sight southern Alaska and the Aleutian Islands aboard the St. Peter before being shipwrecked on uninhabited Bering Island, where he perished from scurvy.