Thomas Hariot
Hariot was born in England around 1560, and studied astronomy and explored North Carolina on Sir Walter Raleigh’s expedition to the Roanoke Colony. He studied at Oxford in the early days of scientific knowledge, and his interest in astronomy and navigation attracted attention of Raleigh. Hariot then joined the expedition and traveled in the Chesapeake Bay area, and with the help of John White, created the first accurate map of that area of America. The map is included in his major work, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. After the Roanoke expedition, Hariot moved back to London and received land from Henry Percy (the ninth earl of Northumberland) to continue his scientific and astronomical research, leading him to build a telescope and sketch the moon four months before Galileo. Hariot eventually died of cancer of the nose in 1621 and Artis Analyticae Praxis was published after his death.
Eliza Brodie