Thor Heyerdahl · 1948 · sea

Thor Heyerdahl's 1948 account of the Kon-Tiki expedition. To prove that pre-Columbian South Americans could have settled Polynesia, Heyerdahl and five companions built a raft of balsa logs after the ancient design and, in 1947, set out from Peru with no engine and no way to turn back. For a hundred and one days they drifted west on the Humboldt Current and the trade winds across more than four thousand miles of open Pacific, until the raft was hurled onto a reef in the Tuamotu Islands, the theory, and the crew, improbably intact.

1. 1
   Callao

   Thor Heyerdahl and five companions set out from Callao on Kon-Tiki, a raft of balsa logs lashed together after the ancient Peruvian design, to prove a crossing the experts said was impossible.

2. 2
   Raroia

   A hundred and one days later, after drifting more than four thousand miles on the Humboldt Current and the trade winds, the raft is flung onto the reef of Raroia in the Tuamotus; all six men survive, the theory afloat.