Discovery of Antarctica
The ancient Greeks were the first people to guess that there was a large landmass around the South Pole as they thought something must balance out the known land at the top of the world. "Arctic" comes from the Greek word for bear, after a group of stars in the northern hemisphere, which the Greeks thought looked like a bear and "Antarctica" means `opposite the bear'. Down the centuries, people could only guess that Antarctica existed as no-one had been there and as a result on many early maps, the area was labelled Terra Australis Incognita, which means `unknown southern land".
The first recorded voyages across the Antarctic Circle were by Captain James Cook, the British explorer between 1770 and 1775. Cook managed to sail round Antarctica until pack ice blocked his route, but in his opinion Antarctica was no good to anyone because of the extreme weather conditions and intense cold.
He was wrong, of course and it wasn't long before a Russian explorer Fabian Bellingshausen became the first person to sight the Antarctic continent on 27th January 1820. Apart from very adventurous explorers, seal and whale hunters had also discovered Antarctica during this period. The first known person to set foot on Antarctica was an American seal hunter, John Davis in 1821.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, millions of seals were killed for their fur in Antarctica, while whales were hunted in the Southern Ocean as a cheap source of oil, whalebone and other products. The money that hunters could make from whaling and seal fur were so high that it was worth the risk to take on Antarctica's harsh conditions and hidden dangers. Even 100 years ago, a hunter could get as much as £2,500 for a large whale bone.
Whaling ship wreck - Neil Stokes
If you look at a map of Antarctica today, many parts are named after the explorers who first discovered them. The Weddell Sea is named after the British explorer James Weddell (1822), Adélie Land, is named after the wife of the French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville (1837) and the Ross Ice Shelf, Ross Island and Ross Sea are named after the British explorer James Clark Ross (1839-43).
Map by Melinda Kolk
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Introduction
Discovery of Antarctica <<
Race for the Poles
First to the North Pole
Race to the South Pole
Further Exploration of Antarctica
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