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Jacques Cartier (1491-1557) was a French explorer who led three expeditions to Canada, in 1534, 1535, and 1541. He was looking for a route to the Pacific through North America (a Northwest Passage) but did not find one. Cartier paved the way for French exploration of North America.

Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer and cartographer best known for establishing and governing the settlements of New France and the city of Quebec.

French explorer Samuel de Champlain was born in 1574 in Brouage, France. He began exploring North America in 1603, establishing the city of Quebec in the northern colony of New France, and mapping the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes, before settling into an administrative role as the de facto governor of New France in 1620. He died on December 25, 1635, in Quebec.

Samuel de Champlain was born in 1574 (according to his baptismal certificate, which was discovered in 2012), in Brouage, a small port town in the province of Saintonge, on the western coast of France. Although Champlain wrote extensively of his voyages and later life, little is known of his childhood. He was likely born a Protestant, but converted to Catholicism as a young adult.

Marco Polo was a Venetian, but where he was actually born is not known with complete certainty. He was born in either the city of Venice or the city of Korcula, Croatia. In Polo’s day, the city was called Curzola, Venetian Dalmatia. Regardless of where he was born though, Marco was raised in Venice, and was Venetian by culture. Marco came from a family of explorers and traders, but it was his name that has become so famous because he took the time to write about all of his adventures.

His father, Nicolo, and his uncle, Maffio, moved around Eastern Europe searching for a place to safely do business trading Eastern goods to the West. Eventually, in 1264, Nicolo and Maffio were sent by Ilkhan Hulagu of Bukhara (one of the minor Khans of the Mongolian Empire) on a mission to visit his brother Kublai, the Great Khan. After traveling for two years, they finally reached Khanbaliq (modern-day Beijing). The Polos were sent back from the Khan with a Mongolian ambassador, Koeketei. The Khan wanted them to carry a message to the Pope, asking for a team of Westerners to come and teach Western culture and Christianity to those under his rule. They were unable to immediately fulfill this request because there was a three-year gap, from 1268 to 1271, during which there was no Pope to whom to carry this message. After Pope Gregory X was selected in 1271, the Polos left on their second journey.