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The Royal Geographical Society is opening its archive of more than two million items from 500 years of exploration. It includes this image of Shackleton's ship Endurance stuck in the ice during his ill-fated 1914-16 Antarctic expedition.

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This is the pocket sextant which Charles Darwin used on his voyage on the Beagle 1831-6, during which time he began to develop his theory of evolution.

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George Mallory and Edward Norton in the second British attempt to climb Everest, 1922. They were unsuccessful and two years later, Mallory would again try to conquer the mountain - he did not return.

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Three decades later, in 1953, Sherpa Tenzing and Edmund Hillary did reach the summit of Everest and lived to tell the tale.

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Dr David Livingstone's travels in Africa culminated in his reaching the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River in 1860. This is his sketch of the falls and a map of the downstream gorge.

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A 1910 image of New Nanny Town - a settlement in the Caribbean for runaway slaves known as "Maroons" and their descendants. Visit www.rgs.org to find out more about accessing the full archive.