
- Captain Cook sailed over 200,000 miles in his Navy career.
- French Polynesia includes 118 islands (one of which is Tahiti) scattered over an area of the Pacific Ocean that is about the size of Europe.
- In Tahiti, many houses have boites de pain - mailboxes for freshly baked baguettes.
- In an effort to keep the Maori language alive in New Zealand, a commission was created to make up words for modern things - such as rorohiko, the word for computer, which translates to "brain lightning."
- Part of Cook's exploration was to create maps of what he found, including naming things. He named the entire continent of Australia New South Wales. No one knows why, since it doesn't seem to resemble Wales in any way.
- The island of Niue (pronounced NEW-ay) is the world's smallest self-governing state. It has a population of about 1,600 people.
- Niue translates to "behold the coconut."
- Captain Cook gave a tortoise to the residents of Tonga on his voyage in 1777. It lived until 1966. Its stuffed remains now reside in the Tongan National Center.
- The islands of Hawaii are farther from continental land than any other group of islands on earth.
- The Hawaiian language has only twelve letters.