7. Captain James Cook was killed in Hawaii on Valentine’s Day while exploring the Pacific
Valentine’s Day of 1779 was also a dark day for the British Empire. It was on this day that one of the country’s most-revered explorers, Captain James Cook, met his end, many thousands of miles from home. While exploring the northern Pacific, Cook was killed by the native people of Hawaii following a quarrel. According to the accounts of his crew, Cook was attacked whilst trying to take a tribe’s king with him onto his ship, the Resolution. At first, he was clubbed in the head and then, when he lay in the surf, he was stabbed repeatedly.
