A Brief History of Antarctic Exploration and Discovery
1800
From bases in New Zealand, American, Russian and European sealers may well have landed on various Antarctic islands, perhaps even on the peninsula of the continent.
An unsolvable mystery exists
to this day as to who was the first person to sight
mainland Antarctica. There are 3 claimants:
1819
William Smith discovered the South Shetland Islands. A Royal Navy officer, Edward Bransfield, then took Smith’s ship south again and claims to have gone ashore on 30th January 1820.
1820
A Russian naval officer, Captain Thaddeus Bellingshausen, reported sighting the Antarctic ice-cap. Some historians believe that Bellingshausen saw only islands; others think he was probably the first person to see the Antarctic continent.
An American businessman named Nathanial Palmer, claimed to have sighted the mainland ten months earlier to Bellingshausen. Most historians believe Palmer sighted Deception Island, not the mainland.
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Exploration and Discovery Navigation
650 AD
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1821 AD
1841 AD
1907 AD
1911 AD
1932 AD
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1989 AD
1994 - 2007 AD
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