A drake is a male duck. English naval hero and explorer who was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world (1577-1580) and was vice admiral of the fleet that destroyed the Spanish Armada (1588). A male duck. A mayfly used as fishing bait. Also called drake fly. a male duck ducks and drakes (From an ancient word related to enterich ). Drake equation Drake Passage Drake Sir Francis
adult male of a wild or domestic duck English explorer and admiral who was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe and who helped to defeat the Spanish Armada (1540-1596)
A strait between Cape Horn and the South Shetland Islands. It connects the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Strait, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans between Tierra del Fuego and the South Shetland Islands. Located about 100 mi (160 km) north of the Antarctic Peninsula, it is 600 mi (1,000 km) wide. In this area the climate changes from cool, humid, and subpolar to the frozen conditions of Antarctica. An important trade route in the 19th and early 20th centuries, its stormy seas and icy conditions made the rounding of Cape Horn a difficult journey
or Green Bank equation Equation claimed to yield the number of technically advanced civilizations capable of interstellar communication in the Milky Way Galaxy as a function of several factors conducive to evolution of intelligent life with technological capabilities. It was largely developed by Frank D. Drake (b. 1930) in 1961 at a SETI conference in Green Bank, W.Va. Of all the stars that form in the Galaxy, only some will give rise to life-supporting planets, and of those planets, only some will generate life capable of high technology and yet able to avoid technological destruction. Because the numbers for each factor are poorly known, the results generated vary from zero to millions
an English sailor and explorer, who was the first Englishman to sail around the world, and was one of the leaders of the English navy when it defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588 (1540-96). born 1540-43, Devonshire, Eng. died Jan. 28, 1596, at sea, off Puerto Bello, Panama English admiral, the most renowned seaman of the Elizabethan Age. Son of a tenant farmer, he went to sea at age 13 to escape his family's poverty. He gained a reputation as an outstanding seaman and became wealthy through raids against Spanish colonies. In 1577 he was commissioned by Elizabeth I to lead an expedition to South America and beyond. He set sail with five ships, but ultimately only his flagship, the Golden Hind, made its way through the Strait of Magellan into the Pacific and up the coast of South and North America; he then turned south to anchor off modern San Francisco, claiming the area for Elizabeth. He sailed westward to the Philippines and around the Cape of Good Hope, and returned to Plymouth, Eng., in 1580 laden with treasure, the first captain ever to sail his own ship around the world and the first Englishman to sail the Pacific, Indian, and South Atlantic oceans. In 1581 he was knighted and made mayor of Plymouth. Appointed vice admiral (1588), he played a crucial role in defeating the Spanish Armada and became England's hero, achieving a popularity unequaled until Horatio Nelson's time more than 200 years later. On his last voyage, to the West Indies, he succumbed to fever and was buried at sea