Marco Polo

Marco Polo was born in 1254. He was a Italian traveler and explorer. He was the first European to cross the entire continent of Asia and leave a record of what he saw and heard.

Marco Polo was born in Venice in 1254. His father Nicolo Polo was a merchant. Marco's mother died when he was just 15 years old. When he was 17, he went to China with his father and uncle. Marco Polo served as a government official while over there. His father and uncle served as military advisers to Kublai Khan.

In 1260, he made an overland journey from Bukhoro, Uzbekistan, to China. Two years later, he made a second journey. The route led from modern-day Akko, Israel, to the Persian Gulf, northward through Iran to present-day Amu-Darya, up the Oxus the Pamir to present day Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and finally across the Gobi Desert. They reached Shang-tu in 1275.

The Polo's left China in the 1292, they left the country as escorts for a Mongol princess traveling by sea to Iran. They got to that country by Sumatra, near southern India. They then went overland past Tabriz in northwest Iran. They went along the east coast of the Black Sea, and past Constantinople. They returned from China in 1295.

In 1298, Marco Polo served as a captain of a Venetian galley that participated in a battle between the fleets of Venice and Genoa. He was taken prisoner by the Genoese. While jailed, he dictated to a fellow prisoner what he saw and heard while he traveled. Marco Polo's book, "The Travels of Marco Polo", first published in French, is probably the most famous travel book in history. It was the basis of the first accurate maps of Asia. The book helped Christopher Columbus in his explorations. Marco Polo died in 1324 when he was 70 years old. When on his death bed, he said "I didn't tell half of what I saw, because no one would have believed me."