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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 term Antarctic, referring to the opposite of the Arctic Circle, was coined by Marinus of Tyre in the 2nd century AD.
Left to right: Roald Amundsen, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel and Oscar Wisting after first reaching the South Pole on 16 December 1911. The Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration was an era in the exploration of the continent of Antarctica which began at the end of the 19th century, and ended after the First World War; the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition of 1921–1922 is often cited by historians ...
Arctic and Antarctic seas were not explored until the 19th century. Once the North Pole had been reached in 1909, several expeditions attempted to reach the South Pole. Many resulted in injury and death. The Norwegian Roald Amundsen finally reached the Pole in December 1911, following a dramatic race with the Englishman Robert Falcon Scott.
Sealers were among the earliest to go closer to the Antarctic landmass, perhaps in the earlier part of the 19th century. The oldest known human remains in the Antarctic region was a skull, dated from 1819 to 1825, that belonged to a young woman on Yamana Beach at the South Shetland Islands.
This list of Antarctica expeditions is a chronological list of expeditions involving Antarctica. Although the existence of a southern continent had been hypothesized as early as the writings of Ptolemy in the 1st century AD, the South Pole was not reached until 1911.
Borchgrevink then went to England, where he was able to persuade the publishing magnate Sir George Newnes to finance him to the extent of £40,000, [50] equivalent to £5.44 million in 2023, [51] with the sole stipulation that, despite the shortage of British participants, the venture be styled the "British Antarctic Expedition". [52]
Antarctica's climate at the time resembled the modern-day Valdivian rainforest in Chile, very wet with temperatures during the warmest months averaging about 57 degrees Fahrenheit (14 degrees ...
The Russian Antarctic expedition ended in complete success and became the second expedition to circumnavigate Antarctica after James Cook's expedition a half century earlier. Of the expedition's 751 days, 527 were spent at sea; the overall length of the route was 49,860 nautical miles . [ 2 ]