Alexander Selkirk
Alexander Selkirk (1676 – 13 December 1721), also known as Alexander Selcraig, was a Scottish sailor who spent more than four years as a castaway after being marooned on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific Ocean (also known as the South Sea).An unruly youth, Selkirk joined buccaneering expeditions to the South Sea, including one commanded by William Dampier, which called in for provisions at the Juan Fernández Islands off Chile. Selkirk judged correctly that his craft, the Cinque Ports, was unseaworthy, and asked to be left there.By the time he was rescued, he had become adept at hunting and making use of the resources he found on the island. His story of survival was widely publicised when he returned home and became a likely source of inspiration for the writer Daniel Defoe's fictional character Robinson Crusoe.
Personal facts
Alias (AKA) | Selkirk Alejandro (Spanish); Selcraig Alexander (birth name) |
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Birth date | January 01, 1676 |
Birth place | |
Nationality | |
Date of death | December 13, 1721 |
Place of death | |
Known for |
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Alexander Selkirk on Wikipedia
External resources
- http://books.google.com/books?id=IY2UnI4L6g8C&pg=PA168#v=onepage&q&f=false
- http://books.google.com/books?isbn=0395911508
- http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Juan+Fern%C3%A1ndez+Islands&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.956293,56.777344&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Archipi%C3%A9lago+Juan+Fern%C3%A1ndez&ll=-33.641307,-78.829097&spn=0.025331,0.044074&t=f&z=15&ecpose=-33.61752429,-78.8220852,1039.22,-166.21,69.778,0
- http://www.ini.unizh.ch/~tobi/fun/alex/alex.php
- http://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-news/top-stories/island-gives-up-secret-of-real-robinson-crusoe-1-1096982
- http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/crusoe.html
- http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,605963,00.html