| During his second trip, James Cook
crosses the Antarctic Circle on 17 January 1773 reaching the latitude of
71°10' south. Cook also discovers Georgia South and South Sandwich Islands. |
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| Resolution, ship of the
second voyage of Cook. |
| During the Russian expedition of 1819-21, on the sloops
Vostok and Mirny, Bellingshausen and
Lazarev became the first explorers to see the Antarctic Land on 27 January
1820. They have gone around the continent twice and never lost sight of
themselves. The expedition discovered and named Peter I Island, Zavodovsky,
Leskov and the Visokoi Islands, the Antarctic Peninsula and the Alexander
Coast. |
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| After the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal
Navy is looking for other titles of glory and the Admiralty will therefore
revive The Polar Expeditions. |
TThree Antarctic expeditions will succeed each other:
French, American, British.
Dumont d’Urville
(19/01/1840) arrives January 22, 1840 on the continent and named it Terre
Adélie, in honor of his wife Adele. |
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Corvette Astrolabe
See our special page Astrolabe |
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Leaving on August 1838, the American expedition of Charles Wilkes (USS
Vincennes) where the members, spot the coast of the Balleny Islands
on 25 January 1840. On 29 January 1840, the expedition crossed the road of
Dumont of Urville |
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| USS Vincennes,sloop of
war class
Boston, 39 m long |
| James Clark Ross (1800-1862) explores the
Arctic with his uncle John Ross before driving his own expedition to
Antarctic. He equips two three-masts, Erebus and
Terror. He learns the details of the discovery of Terre Adélie and
the route of Wilkes. The members of the expedition saw an island, later
named Ross Island, and identify the presence of two of the three volcanoes
that are present: the mountain Erebus, then erupting, and Mount Terror,
baptized after the name of the ships. Mount Erebus is located in Antarctica,
in the centre-west of Ross Island itself located in the western Ross Sea,
nearby coasts of the mainland from which it is separated to the west by the
Strait of McMurdo |
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| HMS Erebus
(bomb vessel, 32 m long) et
HMS Terror (bomb vessel, 31 m long) |
| On 30 January 1820, Edward Bransfield
arrives on King George island and officially takes possession of it. On 30
January he sees mountains of what he calls the Trinity Peninsula,
corresponding to the tip of the current Antarctic Peninsula and the most
northern point of the Antarctic continent. The American Nathaniel
Palmer, in search for a seal hunting site, discovers on this same
period, the Antarctic Peninsula on 17 November 1820 |
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| James Weddell (1787-1834) British
navigator, explorer and seal hunter, launched between 1821 and 1824 the
Weddell Expedition.. With the ships Jane and Beaufoy, he
searched in vain for a land between the South Shetland Islands and the South
Orkney Islands |
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| In February 1832, John Biscoe leaves for
Antarctic with his two ships, discovers the island Adelaide and the Biscoe
Islands (February 18) and especially what he named Graham Land, which is
none other than the northern tip of the Antarctic continent. complete the
South Pole. This is the third after James Cook and Bellingshausen to do it.
Biscoe then serves in the Caribbean and Australia. He died at sea on a
return trip to England in 1843. |
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In London, in 1895, the
International Congress of Geography says: “Exploring Antarctic regions is
the most important geographical work to undertake before the end of the
century."
The first to take up the challenge is a Belgian officer,
Adrien de Gerlache : Belgica, a three-mast built
for whaling, leaves Antwerp in August 1897 and will be the first to winter,
caught by the ice before his return to Antwerp, on 5 November 1899. |
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| The Germans launched the Gauss
expedition led by Eric von Drygalsky who winters on King William land |
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| Gauss,
bankentine 46 m long |
Finalement, l’Amirauté appuie une expédition financée en
partie par le patron du Daily Mail, avec Discovery commandée par le
capitaine de corvette Robert Falcon Scott. L'expédition Discovery,
officiellement appelée British National Antarctic Expedition (BrNAE), doit
suivre le littoral de la mer de Ross, découverte environ soixante ans plus
tôt par James Clark Ross. Après deux hivernages, Discovery rentre en
Nouvelle-Zélande.
Finally, the Admiralty supports an expedition
funded by the boss of the Daily Mail, with Discovery
commanded by Robert Falcon Scott. The Discovery Expedition,
Officially called British National Antarctic Expedition (BrnAE), must follow
the coastline of the Ross Sea, discovered about sixty years earlier by James
Clark Ross. After two winterings, Discovery returns to New Zealand. |
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| Charcot wintered in
1903 at Wandel Island with
Le Français and leave in 1908 with Pourquoi Pas ? |
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See
special page Charcot |
| Scotia Expedition or Scottish National name
Antarctic Expedition (SNAE) was conducted between 1902 and 1904 by
William Speirs Bruce, British Oceanographer |
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| Ernest Shackleton, who participated in the
first wintering of Scott, found funding and chartered a sealer,
Nimrod, in 1907. On 9 January 1909, Shackleton turns back 97
nautical miles from the pole. Member of the expedition, Douglas
Mawson made the first ascent of Erebus Mount on Ross island
of and reaches the magnetic South Pole for the first time. Mawson then
directed the Australian Antarctic expedition between 1911 and 1914, with the
exploration and mapping of almost a part unexplored from the coast of
Antarctica located in southern Australia with Aurora. |
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| John King Davis, participated in the
Nimrod expeditions of Shackleton, then Aurora, of Mawson
with the establishment of weather stations on Macquarie Island. He was also
captain of the RRS Discovery during the BANZARE expedition,
British Australian (and) New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition,
conducted between 1929 and 1931 by Douglas Mawson |
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| Scott closes a new budget and goes on the
whaler Terra Nova with 65 men on the British Antarctic
Expedition 1910. Amundsen will change his plans and go to
Antarctic instead of The Arctic. Finally, Scott left McMurdo arrives at the
pole after Amundsen, on a road further west and died on the return to Mc
Murdo in 1912. |
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See
special page Scott |
| In 1912, Shackleton planned crossing of the
continent of the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea via the pole. He prepares the
Endurance Expedition (1914-1917). Endurancewas several
months prisonner in the ice. Aboard a launch of Endurance, James
Caird, he reached the southern coast of South Georgia and then
crossed this mountainous island on foot to reach the British whaleing
station of Stromness from where will the rescue group depart to bring back
all members of his expedition safely. |
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See the special page Shackleton
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| Norwegian sailor Carl Anton Larsen
(1860-1924) manages from 1892 an expedition to Antarctic aboard the
Jason (1892-1894) during which he discovers Oscar
II land. Later, he runs the ship Antarctic, during
the Swedish expedition to Antarctica from 1901 to 1904. During this
mission, some crew members winter during 18 months at Snow Hill
Island. After the ship broke on the ice and Larsen and his crew
spend a winter (1903) on Paulet Island, surviving by eating penguins
and seals before being rescued by the Argentine corvette Uruguay. |
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| Jason (sealer,
45 m long) |
Castor |
| Otto Nordenskjöld leads
the exepedition of 1901-1904, led by Sweden in Antarctic, to edge of the
whaler Antarctic |
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| John Riddoch Rymill, (1905-1968 in Penola)
leads the Australian British Graham Land (BGLE) expedition to Antarctica
enters 1934 and 1937 on Graham's land in geophysical research |
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| Penola (formerfishing
schooner, converted into a yacht) |
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| After the time of exploration and
mapping the continent, comes the time of building stations in Antarctic |
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