Today we bring you part 1 of Ted’s Notebook.

In today’s Part 1, Ted puts on his history-teacher hat to explore the remarkable life of David Thompson. One of North America’s greatest mapmakers and explorers, Thompson traveled tens of thousands of miles, surveyed an enormous portion of the continent, and helped reveal the rivers, mountains, and travel routes of the Northwest—often under conditions difficult for us to imagine today.

In Part 2, which will air in a couple days, we'll meet an athlete whose career appeared to be over—until an extraordinary second chance changed not only his future, but the future of countless others. Then we’ll head out to sea, considering the hardships faced by sailors across the centuries, from the age of exploration to the enormous floating cities of the modern Navy.

Together, all three are stories ...