ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION TIMELINE
Up until the 18th century, the continent at the bottom of the Southern Hemisphere was drawn in as Terra Australis Incognito.
1773
Capt. James Cook and his crew are the first to cross the Antarctic Circle. In 1775, Cook claimed South Georgia Island for Britain. On his third voyage, Cook sailed past South Georgia but did not see the continent of Antarctica.
1820
The question of who discovered Antarctica is controversial. American sealer Nathaniel B. Palmer, Capt. Edward Bransfield of Britain, and Admiral Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen from Russia, all laid claim to its discovery.
1821
American sealer and explorer John Davis and his crew are the first to land on Antarctica.
1823
Englishman James Weddell sails to 74 degrees south, the furthest south reached to this point in the sea that now bears his name.
1840
Jules-Sebastian Dumont d’Urville discovers a stretch of Antarctic coastline, which he names for his wife, Adelie. The penguins found there also bear her name.
1841
In January, James Clark Ross discovers Victoria Land and enters the sea that now bears his name. He discovered Ross Island and named an active volcano, Mount Erebus, and a smaller inactive volcano, Mount Terror, after his ships. The British Admiralty subsequently sent the ships to the Arctic under John Franklin’s command to search for the Northwest Passage. Franklin and his crew all died in the attempt. Ross commanded a rescue expedition to find Franklin in 1848. The wreck of the Erebus was discovered in 2014, and the HMS Terror in 2016.
1890
Having depleted the whaling stock to the north, whalers move southward triggering a renewed interest in the Antarctic, with explorers from various countries vying to become the first to reach the South Pole. It’s romantically dubbed the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
1898
Adrien de Gerlache and the crew of Belgica are trapped in pack ice off the Antarctic Peninsula. They drift for a year, but manage to become the first to survive an Antarctic winter.
1902
Swedish geologist Otto Nordenskjold and five crew members spend the first of two winters and make the first major sled journey in Antarctica. Their ship was crushed in the ice pack after leaving the crew on Snow Hill Island, creating two separate groups of explorers. Miraculously, the second crew survived the winter and found their way back to the island where the whole party was rescued in 1903 by an Argentine relief ship.
1902
Brits Robert F. Scott, Edward Wilson and Ernest Shackleton get within 745 kilometres of the South Pole. Scurvy, frostbite and a supply shortage force them to turn back. In their struggle to survive, they killed and ate their sled dogs.
1904
Norwegian Carl Larsen builds the first whaling station at Grytviken on South Georgia. Within 10 years, more than 20 stations and factory ships are operating in this region.
1908
Ernest Shackleton, Frank Wild, Eric Marshall and Jameson Adams get within
156 kilometres of the South Pole, but are forced to turn back because of a shortage of supplies.
1911
Two teams race to reach the South Pole. Using sled dogs and skis, Norwegian Roald Amundsen and four team members get there first on Dec. 14. Amundsen plants a Norwegian flag and leaves letters for Robert Scott and his four-man team. Scott arrived a month later. He and his team all died on the way back.
1912
After other members of his expedition team die, Australian geologist Douglas Mawson treks across George V Land back to his base at Commonwealth Bay only to see the expedition’s ship sailing away. He survived for a year before being rescued.
1915
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton aims to be the first to cross the continent. After their ship, the Endurance, is wrecked, Shackleton and five others sail nearly 1,300 kilometres in a small, open boat to reach a supply depot on South Georgia, while 28 others remain on Elephant Island in the South Shetlands. But the supplies weren’t there, so Shackleton, Tom Crean and Frank Worsley trekked across the island to a whaling station. It took more than a year and four tries before Shackleton finally returned for his crew on Elephant Island.
1922
At the age of 48, Shackleton dies of a heart attack while on another expedition. He is buried at South Georgia.
1929
American aviator Richard Byrd and three others are the first to fly over the South Pole.
1958
An expedition led by New Zealand explorer Edmund Hillary is the first to complete an overland crossing of Antarctica and the first to reach the South Pole since Scott in 1912. Hillary’s team used modified Massey Ferguson tractors.
2016
British explorer Henry Worsley — a distant relative of Shackleton team member Frank Worsley — dies attempting to cross Antarctica unaided, 50 kilometres short of his goal. In 2012, Henry Worsley’s expedition had successfully retraced Roald Amundsen’s 1912 route to the South Pole.
2017
Ben Saunders, another British explorer, fails in his attempt at a solo, unaided and unassisted crossing of Antarctica. Fellow Brit Robert Swan completes his second trek to the South Pole.