The 'history of Antarctica' emerges from early Western theories of a vast continent, known as
Terra Australis, believed to exist in the far south of the globe. The rounding of the
Cape of Good Hope and
Cape Horn in the
15th century and
16th century proved that ''Terra Australis Incognita'' ("Unknown Southern Land") was a continent in its own right. In
1773 James Cook crossed the
Antarctic Circle for the first time but although he discovered nearby islands, he did not catch sight of Antarctica itself.
In 1820 several expeditions claimed to have been the first to have sighted Antarctica. The first landing was probably just over a year later when
American Captain John Davis, a
sealer, set foot on the ice. Once the
North Pole had been reached in 1831 several expeditions attempted to reach the
South Pole. Many resulted in
injury and
death. The
Norwegian Roald Amundsen finally claimed the prize following a dramatic race with the
Briton Robert Falcon Scott in December 1911.
The search for ''Terra Australis Incognita''
Main articles: Terra Australis
In the
Western world, belief in a
Terra Australis - a vast continent located in the far south of the globe to "balance" out the northern lands of
Europe,
Asia and
North Africa - had existed for centuries.
Aristotle had postulated a symmetry of the earth, which meant that there would be equally habitable lands south of the known world. The Greeks suggested that these two hemispheres, north and south, were divided by a 'belt of fire'.
It was not until
Prince Henry the Navigator began in 1418 to encourage the penetration of the
torrid zone in the effort to reach
India by circumnavigating
Africa that the exploration of the southern hemisphere began. In 1473
Portuguese navigator
Lopes Gonçalves proved that the
equator could be crossed, and cartographers and sailors began to assume the existence of another, temperate continent to the south of the known world.
In 1570 a map by
Ortelius showed the imagined link between the proposed continent of Antarctica and
South America. Note also the proposed landmasses surrounding the
North Pole.
The doubling of the
Cape of Good Hope in 1487 by
Bartholomew Diaz first brought explorers within touch of the Antarctic cold, and proved that there was an ocean separating
Africa from any Antarctic land that might exist.
Ferdinand Magellan, who passed through the
Straits of Magellan in 1520, assumed that the islands of
Tierra del Fuego to the south were an extension of this unknown southern land, and it appeared as such on a map by
Ortelius: ''Terra australis recenter inventa sed nondum plene cognita'' ("Southern land recently discovered but not yet known").. In 1513, the Turkish admiral
Piri Reis also drew a
a map that has been said to show part of the Antarctic continent.
The doubling of
Cape Horn by
Drake in 1578 proved that the Tierra del Fuego archipelago was of small extent and that any continent which lay to the south must be within the region of perpetual winter. European geographers connected the coast of Tierra del Fuego with the coast of New Guinea on their globes and allowing their imaginations to run riot in the vast unknown spaces of the south Atlantic, south
Indian and
Pacific oceans. They sketched the outlines of the ''Terra Australis Incognita'' ("Unknown Southern Land"), a vast continent stretching in parts into the tropics. The search for this great south land or Third World was a leading motive of explorers in the 16th and the early part of the 17th centuries.
Schouten and
Le Maire rediscovered the southern extremity of Tierra del Fuego and named it Cape Horn in 1615.
Quirós in 1606 took possession for the king of Spain all of the lands he had discovered in Australia del Espiritu Santo (the
New Hebrides) and those he would discover "even to the Pole".
Tasman in 1642 showed that
New Holland (Australia) was separated by sea from any continuous southern continent.
Map from 1771, showing abstract circular Terres Australis.
Voyagers round the Horn frequently met with contrary winds and were driven southward into snowy skies and ice-encumbered seas; but so far as can be ascertained none of them before 1770 reached the Antarctic Circle, or knew it, if they did. The story of the discovery of land in 64° S. by
Dirk Gerritz on board the ''Blijde Boodschap'' in 1599 was shown to be the result of a mistake of a commentator,
Kasper Barlaeus, in 1622.
A similar story of sighting "snow-covered mountains" beyond the 64° S in 1603 is told of the
Spanish Gabriel de Castilla[1].
Better documented is the visit to
South Georgia by
Anthony de la Roché in 1675, the first ever discovery of land south of the
Antarctic Convergence.
[2][3] Soon after the voyage cartographers started to depict on their maps ‘Roché Island’, honouring the discoverer.
James Cook was aware of la Roché's discovery when surveying and mapping the island in 1775.
[4]
It may safely be said that all the navigators who fell in with the southern ice up to 1750 did so by being driven off their course and not of set purpose. An exception may perhaps be made in favor of
Halley's voyage in ''
HMS Paramour'' for magnetic investigations in the South Atlantic when he met the ice in 52° S. in January 1700; but that latitude was his farthest south. A determined effort on the part of the French naval officer
Pierre Bouvet to discover the South Land described by a half legendary
sieur de Gonneyville resulted only in the discovery of
Bouvet Island in 54°10' S., and in the navigation of 48 degrees of longitude of ice-cumbered sea nearly in 55° S. in 1730.
In 1771
Yves Joseph Kerguelen sailed from
France with instructions to proceed south from
Mauritius in search of "a very large continent." He lighted upon a land in 50° S. which he called South France, and believed to be the central mass of the southern continent. He was sent out again to complete the exploration of the new land, and found it to be only an inhospitable island which he renamed in disgust the Isle of Desolation, but in which posterity has recognized his courageous efforts by naming it
Kerguelen Land.
South of the Antarctic Circle
Main articles: James Cook
The obsession of the undiscovered continent culminated in the brain of
Alexander Dalrymple, the brilliant and erratic
hydrographer who was nominated by the
Royal Society to command the
Transit of Venus expedition to
Tahiti in 1769. The command of the expedition was given by the admiralty to Captain
James Cook. Sailing in 1772 with the ''Resolution'', a vessel of 462 tons under his own command and the ''Adventure'' of 336 tons under Captain
Tobias Furneaux, Cook first searched in vain for
Bouvet Island, then sailed for 20 degrees of longitude to the westward in latitude 58° S., and then 30° eastward for the most part south of 60° S., a higher southern latitude than had ever been voluntarily entered before by any vessel. On
January 17,
1773 the
Antarctic Circle was crossed for the first time in history and the two ships reached 67° 15' S. in 39° 35' E., where their course was stopped by ice.
There Cook turned northward to look for
French Southern and Antarctic Lands, of the discovery of which he had received news at
Cape Town, but from the rough determination of his longitude by Kerguelen, Cook reached the assigned latitude 10° too far east and did not see it. He turned south again and was stopped by ice in 61° 52' S. and 95° E. and continued eastward nearly on the parallel of 60° S. to 147° E. where on
March 16 the approaching winter drove him northward for rest to
New Zealand and the tropical islands of the Pacific. In November 1773 Cook left New Zealand, having parted company with the ''Adventure'', and reached 60° S. in 177° W., whence he sailed eastward keeping as far south as the floating ice allowed. The Antarctic Circle was crossed on
December 20 and Cook remained south of it for three days, being compelled after reaching 67° 31' S. to stand north again in 135° W.
A long detour to 47° 50' S.. served to show that there was no land connection between New Zealand and
Tierra del Fuego, and turning south again Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle for the third time in 109° 30' W., and four days later his progress was blocked by ice in 71° 10' S., 106° 54' W. This point, reached on
January 30,
1774, was the farthest south attained in the 18th century. With a great detour to the east, almost to the coast of South America, the expedition regained Tahiti for refreshment. In November 1774 Cook started from New Zealand and crossed the South Pacific without sighting land between 53° and 57° S. to Tierrra del Fuego, then passing Cape Horn on
December 29 he discovered the
Isle of Georgia and Sandwich Land, the only ice-clad land he had seen, and crossed the South Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope between 55° and 60°. He thereby laid open the way for future Antarctic exploration by exploding the myth of a habitable southern continent. Cook's most southerly discovery of land lay on the temperate side of the 60th parallel, and he convinced himself that if land lay farther south it was practically inaccessible and of no economic value.
First sighting of land
Some of the early exploration routes.
The first land south of the parallel 60° south latitude was discovered by the Englishman
William Smith, who sighted
Livingston Island on
February 19,
1819. Few months later Smith returned to explore the other islands of the
South Shetlands archipelago, landed on
King George Island, and claimed the new territories for
Britain.
In the meantime, the Spanish Navy ship
San Telmo sank in September 1819 when trying to cross Cape Horn. Parts of her wreckage were found months later by sealers on the north coast of
Livingston Island (
South Shetlands). It is unknown if some survivor managed to be the first setting foot on these Antarctic islands.
The first confirmed sighting of Antarctica cannot be accurately attributed to one single person. It can, however, be narrowed down to three individuals. According to various sources
[1] [2] [3][4], three men all sighted Antarctica within days or months of each other:
Fabian von Bellingshausen (a captain in the Russian Imperial Navy),
Edward Bransfield (a captain in the British navy), and
Nathaniel Palmer (an American sealer out of Stonington, Connecticut). It is certain that on
January 28,
1820 (New Style), the expedition led by
Fabian von Bellingshausen and
Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev on two ships reached a point within 20 miles (40 km) of the Antarctic mainland and saw ice-fields there. On
January 30,
1820, Bransfield sighted
Trinity Peninsula, the northernmost point of the Antarctic mainland, while Palmer sighted the mainland in the area south of Trinity Peninsula in November 1820. Bellingshausen's expedition also discovered
Peter I Island and
Alexander I Island, the first islands to be discovered south of the circle.
Exploration
Only slightly more than a year later, the first landing on the Antarctic mainland was arguably by the American Captain
John Davis, a sealer, who claimed to have set foot there on
February 7,
1821, though this is not accepted by all historians.
[5][6].
Painting of
James Weddell´s second expedition, depicting the brig "Jane" and the cutter "Beaufroy".
Nathaniel Palmer, an American sealer looking for seal breeding grounds sighted what is now known as the
Antarctic Peninsula on the northwestern quadrant of the continent in December 1821. In 1823,
James Weddell, a British sealer sailed into what is now known as the
Weddell Sea.
The first person to realize that he had actually discovered a whole continent was
Charles Wilkes who commanded a
United States Navy expedition.
[5] His 1840 voyage discovered what is now known as
Wilkes Land, on the southeast quadrant of the continent.
After the
North Magnetic Pole was located in 1831, explorers and scientists began looking for the
South Magnetic Pole. One of the explorers,
James Clark Ross, a British naval officer, identified its approximate location, but was unable to reach it on his trip in 1841. Commanding the British ships ''Erebus'' and ''Terror'', he braved the pack ice and approached what is now known as the
Ross Ice Shelf, a massive floating
ice shelf over 100 feet high. His expedition sailed eastward along the southern Antarctic coast discovering mountains which were since named after his ships:
Mount Erebus, the most active volcano on Antarctica, and
Mount Terror.
5.
The first documented landing on the mainland of
East Antarctica was by the American sealer
Mercator Cooper on
January 26,
1853 aboard the Levant at
Victoria Land.
[6]
In 1897, an expedition led by
Belgian Adrian de Gerlache left
Antwerp,
Belgium for Antarctica. The multi-national crew included a
Romanian zoologist (
Emil Racoviţă), a
Polish geologist (
Henryk Arctowski), a Belgian navigator/astronomer (
George Lecointe), several Norwegians, including
Roald Amundsen, and an American surgeon, Dr.
Frederick Cook. In 1898, they became the first men to spend winter on Antarctica, when their ship
Belgica became trapped in the ice. They became stuck on
February 28,
1898, and only managed to get out of the ice on
March 14,
1899. During their forced stay, several men lost their sanity, not only because of the Antarctic winter night and the endured hardship, but also because of the language problems between the different nationalities. A year later a British expedition commanded by Norwegian
Carstens Borchgrevink became the first to intentionally spend winter on the continent itself.
5[7]
British National Antarctic Expedition (''Discovery'')
Main articles: Discovery Expedition
''RRS Discovery''
The
British ''
National Antarctic Expedition'' (1901 - 1904), led by
Robert Falcon Scott, came to within 857 km (463 nautical miles) of the South Pole from its base at
McMurdo Sound.
Scottish National Antarctic Expedition
Main articles: Scottish National Antarctic Expedition
In 1903 the ''
Scottish National Antarctic Expedition'' established ''Osmond House'', a
meteorological observatory on
Laurie Island in the
South Orkneys. A year later, ownership was passed to
Argentina and renamed to
Orcadas Base, the continent's oldest permanent base
[7], and the only one present for roughly the next 40 years.
British Imperial Antarctic Expedition (''Nimrod'')
Main articles: Nimrod Expedition
''Nimrod'' trapped in ice.
, who had been a member of Scott's expedition, organized and led the
''British Imperial Antarctic Expedition'' (1907-09), again with the primary objective of reaching the South Pole, and came within 180 km (97 nautical miles) before having to turn back. On this expedition, again based at
McMurdo Sound,
Shackleton, discovered the
Beardmore Glacier and was the first to reach the polar plateau. During this expedition, parties led by
T. W. Edgeworth David became the first to climb
Mount Erebus and to reach the
South Magnetic Pole.
Race to the Pole (''Fram'' and ''Terra Nova'')
On
December 14,
1911, a party led by Norwegian polar explorer
Roald Amundsen from the ship
''Fram'' became the first to reach the
South Pole, using a route from the
Bay of Whales (his camp
Polheim and up the
Axel Heiberg Glacier. Amundsen was followed by
Robert Falcon Scott from the
''Terra Nova'' over a month later, using the route pioneered by Shackleton. Scott's party later died on the return journey after being delayed by a series of accidents, bad weather, and the declining physical condition of the men. The
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station was later named after these two men.
Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (''Endurance'')
Main articles: Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition
Endurance trapped in pack ice
The ''
Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition'' of 1914, led by Ernest Shackleton, set out to cross the continent via the pole, but their ship, the
''Endurance'', was trapped and crushed by pack ice before they even landed. The expedition members survived after an epic journey on sledges over pack ice to
Elephant Island. Then Shackleton and five others crossed the Southern Ocean, in an
open boat called
''James Caird'', and then trekked over
South Georgia to raise the alarm at the whaling station
Grytviken.
Exploration by air: 30s, 40s and 50s
US Navy Rear Admiral
Richard Evelyn Byrd led five expeditions to Antarctica during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. He overflew the South Pole with pilot
Bernt Balchen on November 28 and 29, 1929, to match his overflight of the North Pole in 1926. Byrd's explorations had science as a major objective and pioneered the use of aircraft on the continent. Byrd is credited with doing more for Antarctic exploration than any other explorer. His expeditions set the scene for modern Antarctic exploration and research.
It was not until
October 31,
1956 that anyone set foot on the south pole again; on that day
US Navy Rear Admiral George Dufek
[8] (and others) successfully landed a R4D Skytrain (
Douglas DC-3) aircraft.
During the
International Geophysical Year of 1957 a large number of expeditions were mounted.
Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition
Main articles: Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition
Sir Edmund Hillary in 1958 after accompanying the first plane to land at the Marble Point ground air strip - Antarctica
In 1956, a
United States Navy expedition set up the first permanent based at the South Pole,
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, by airlift, to support the
International Geophysical Year. In 1958,
Edmund Hillary's party in the New Zealand party of the
Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition became the third group in history to reach the South Pole by land, and the first group of motor vehicles to reach the pole. The British team led by
Vivian Fuchs, met them at the pole shortly afterwards. The expedition completed the first overland crossing of the continent by land via the South Pole.
5
New Zealand mountaineer Sir
Edmund Hillary reached the Pole in early January 1958 using farm tractors equipped for polar travel, the first party since Scott's to reach the South Pole overland. Hillary was laying supply depots as part of the
Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition and in typical Hillary style "detoured" to the pole because the trip had gone well. British explorer Sir
Vivian Fuchs then arrived at the Pole from the opposite direction later in January, meeting Hillary. Fuchs continued on, making use of the provisions that Hillary had stored, and on
March 2 succeeded in reaching
Scott Base, completing the overland transpolar crossing that Shackleton had envisaged.
Recent history
The
Antarctic Treaty was signed on
December 1,
1959 and came into force on
June 23,
1961. Among other provisions, this treaty limits
military activity in the Antarctic to the support of scientific research.
A baby, named
Emilio Marcos de Palma, was born near
Hope Bay on
January 7,
1978, becoming the first baby born on the continent. He also was born farther south than anyone in history.
[8]
On
November 28,
1979, an
Air New Zealand DC-10 on a sightseeing trip crashed into
Mount Erebus on
Ross Island, killing all 257 people on board.
In March 2002 the 5,500 km² (2,120 square statute mile)
Iceberg B-22 broke off from the
Thwaites Ice Tongue and the
Larsen B ice shelf on the
Antarctic Peninsula, and shattered into small fragments. The ice shelf was 200 metres thick and had a surface area of 3,250 square kilometres.
See also
★
History of Livingston Island
★
List of Antarctica expeditions
★
List of research stations in Antarctica
★
History of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
External links
★
70South: Antarctic History
★
Antarctic Heritage Trust
★
Surveying Antarctica, 1957
★
Big Dead Place
eBooks on Project Gutenberg
★
★
★
References
1. Don Gabriel de Castilla, primer avistador de la Antártica, by Chilean historian Isidoro Vázquez de Acuña (Spanish language)
2. Dalrymple, Alexander. (1771). ''A Collection of Voyages Made to the Ocean Between Cape Horn and Cape of Good Hope''. Two volumes. London.
3. Headland, Robert K. (1984). ''The Island of South Georgia'', Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0 521 25274 1
4. Cook, James. (1777). ''A Voyage Towards the South Pole, and Round the World. Performed in His Majesty's Ships the Resolution and Adventure, In the Years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775. In which is included, Captain Furneaux's Narrative of his Proceedings in the Adventure during the Separation of the Ships''. Volume II. London: Printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell. ()
5.
6. Antarctic Circle - Antarctic First
7.
8. antarctica.org - Science: in force...
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
