They went where?

DESPITE a long tradition of exploration and discovery, British people appear at a loss when trying to matching explorers with the journeys they actually took, according to an Expedia survey. Even when it comes to the most famous and highly regarded explorers, fewer than one in three could say accurately name where they had gone. More than 85 percent said that Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus had the greatest impact on the modern world, yet only 23 percent and 31 percent respectively correctly named their famous journeys. .

Most notable was Christopher Columbus. Eighty-eight percent of Brits say he had the greatest bearing on the world as we know it, yet 70 percent confused his achievements with Ferdinand Magellan's circumnavigation of the earth, or credited him with Sir Walter Raleigh's discovery of tobacco and potatoes.

Go Holiday editor David Kernek comments: Is this because British schools long ago gave up teaching basic history and geography as these subjects were once taught?

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