John Davis (John Davys) was an English navigator. He was born in 1550 at Sandridge, in Devonshire and died in 1605. Between 1585 and 1587 he conducted three expeditions for the discovery of the north-west passage. In the first he coasted round the south of Greenland and sailed across the strait that now bears his name into Cumberland Gulf, and in the third he sailed north through Davis Strait into Baffin's Bay. He also accompanied the expedition of Cavendish to the Pacific in 1591 to 1593, and made several voyages to the East Indies. In 1605 John Davis was killed by Japanese pirates in the Indian seas. He wrote Seamen's Secrets (a work on navigation), and the World's Hydrographical Description.
John Davis was an American statesman. He was born in 1787 and died in 1854. He was a National Republican Congressman from 1825 until 1834, when he became Governor of Massachusetts. From 1835 to 1840 he was a US Senator, and opposed the administrations of Jackson and Van Buren. After again serving as Governor from 1840 until 1841, he was returned to the Senate from 1845 until 1853. He opposed the Mexican War and the introduction and extension of slavery, and received the appellation of 'Honest John Davis'. Research John Davis
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