Who explored Antarctica?

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Although there was for centuries a tradition that another land lay south of the known world, attempts to find it were defeated by the ice. Antarctica's frigid nature was revealed by the second voyage (1772-75) of the English explorer Capt. James Cook . He did not see the continent as he circumnavigated the world, but he was the first to cross the Antarctic Circle. British and U.S. seal hunters followed him to South Georgia, an island in the S Atlantic. In 1819 the British mariner William Smith discovered the South Shetland Islands. Returning in 1820, he and James Bransfield of the British navy explored and roughly mapped the Shetlands and part of the shore of the Antarctic Peninsula. Searching for rookeries, sealers explored the coastal and offshore regions of the Antarctic Peninsula. Most notable were the British captains James Weddell, George Powell, and Robert Fildes and the Americans Nathaniel B. Palmer, Benjamin Pendleton, Robert Johnson, and John Davis. Davis made the first landing on the antarctic continent (Feb. 7, 1821) at Hughes Bay on the Antarctic Peninsula. First to spend the winter in Antarctica, on King George Island in 1821, were 11 men from the wrecked British vessel Lord Mellville. After 1822 fur sealing declined, but in 1829-30 Palmer and Pendleton led a sealing and exploring expedition that included Dr. James Eights, the first U.S. scientist to visit Antarctica. John Biscoe, a British navigator, circumnavigated Antarctica from 1830 to 1832, sighting Enderby Land in 1831 and exploring the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula in 1832. John Balleny and Peter Kemp were other British sealers who made discoveries in E Antarctica in the 1830s. Four naval exploring expeditions visited Antarctica in the first half of the 19th cent. Capt. T. T. Bellingshausen was the leader of a Russian expedition that circumnavigated Antarctica (1819-21). He apparently was the first to see (1820) the part of the continent that is now called Queen Maud Land. In W Antarctica he discovered (1821) Peter I Island and Alexander Island. Admiral J. S. C. Dumont d'Urville led a French expedition to the Pacific Ocean that made two visits to Antarctica. He explored in the area of the Antarctic Peninsula in 1838 and in 1840 discovered Clarie Coast and Adélie Coast in E Antarctica. In 1840 Lt. Charles Wilkes, leader of the U.S. Exploring Expedition to the Pacific (1838-42), sailed along the coast of E Antarctica for 1,500 mi (2,400 km), sighting land at nine points. British Capt. James C. Ross commanded two vessels on an expedition (1841-43) that discovered Victoria Land in E Antarctica, the Ross Sea, and the Ross Ice Shelf and explored and mapped the western approaches of the Weddell Sea. The 1890s also marked the beginning of a period of extensive Antarctic exploration, during which 16 exploring expeditions from nine countries visited the continent. For the first time, many of them were financed by private individuals and sponsored by scientific societies. It was a period of innovation and hardship in an extremely harsh, little-known environment. The Belgian expedition under Lt._Adrien de Gerlache was beset in the pack ice in Mar., 1898, and the ship drifted west across the Bellingshausen Sea for a year before it was released. A British expedition led by C. E. Borchgrevink was the first to establish a base for wintering on the continent (Cape Adare, 1899) and the first to make sledge journeys. Different parts of the Antarctic Peninsula and the islands of the Scotia Arc were explored by de Gerlache (1897-98), a Swedish expedition under Dr. Otto Nordenskjold (1901-4), the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition led by W. S. Bruce (1902-4), and two French expeditions led by Dr. Jean B. Charcot (1903-5 and 1908-10). Nordenskjold spent two winters in Antarctica before being rescued after his ship was crushed by ice. Exploration in the Ross Sea area during this period was characterized by long inland journeys. Four British expeditions had bases on Ross Island at McMurdo Sound. British Capt. R. F. Scott headed two expeditions (1901-4 and 1910-13), E. H. Shackleton led another expedition (1907-9), and A. E. Mackintosh headed the Ross Sea Party of Shackleton's unsuccessful Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-17). Roald Amundsen , a Norwegian, set up his base at the Bay of Whales, an indentation in the front of the Ross Ice Shelf, and a Japanese expedition (1911-12) was ship-based. The British expeditions carried out extensive exploration and scientific investigation of Victoria Land. Shackleton sledged to within 97 mi (156 km) of the South Pole (Jan., 1909), but it was Amundsen who reached the Pole first, on Dec. 14, 1911. Scott reached it on Jan. 17, 1912, but he and four companions perished on the return trip. The Weddell Sea border of E Antarctica was seen first by Bruce (1904), and it was later explored by the German expedition of Dr. Wilhelm Filchner, discoverer of the Filchner Ice Shelf, whose ship was beset and drifted in the Weddell Sea through the winter of 1912 before being released. Shackleton reached the Weddell Sea in Jan., 1915. He had planned to sledge to McMurdo Sound, via the South Pole, but his ship was beset and crushed in the ice, and his party lived on ice floes until they finally reached Elephant Island in boats. From there Shackleton made his epic voyage of c.800 mi (1,290 km) to South Georgia in an open boat. Two other expeditions explored E Antarctica during the early 20th cent.—Dr. Erich von Drygalski 's well-equipped German expedition (1901-3) was cut short on the Wilhelm II Coast when the ship was beset; and Douglas Mawson , leader of the Australasian Expedition (1911-14) established bases at Commonwealth Bay on the George V Coast and on the Queen Mary Coast. Five major sledge journeys were made from Commonwealth Bay; two men perished and Mawson barely survived. In the period following World War I, scientific and technological advances were applied to further antarctic exploration. The first airplane flight in Antarctica (Nov. 26, 1928) was by Sir George Hubert Wilkins , an Australian who later flew down the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula. However, it was U.S. explorer Richard E. Byrd who most successfully coordinated radios, tractors, airplanes, and aerial cameras for the purposes of exploration. On his first expedition Byrd established his base, Little America, near the site of Amundsen's old base at the Bay of Whales. From Little America he made the first flight over the South Pole on Nov. 29, 1929. On this expedition Marie Byrd Land was discovered and explored from the air. On his second expedition (1933-35) Byrd successfully integrated flights with long sledge and tractor journeys in a more complete exploration of Marie Byrd Land. In 1929-30 three other expeditions were also using aircraft for short flights over the coast. Wilkins in 1929-30 operated in the Bellingshausen Sea. A Norwegian captain, Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen, explored (1929-30) the coast of E Antarctica from Enderby Land to Coats Land; the area was later claimed by Norway as Queen Maud Land. In Nov., 1935, U.S. explorer Lincoln Ellsworth made the first transantarctic flight, from Dundee Island at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula to the Bay of Whales, landing four times en route. The British Graham Land Expedition explored the Antarctic Peninsula by sea, air, and dog team from 1935 to 1937, using a different base each winter. Germany made a calculatedly spectacular effort at aerial surveying when two aircraft flying from a catapult ship photographed approximately 135,000 sq mi (350,000 sq km) of Queen Maud Land. The Norwegians had done considerable exploration and mapping during the first two decades of antarctic whaling in the Scotia Arc. In 1925-26 they introduced pelagic whaling with factory ships that could operate in the open sea. Between 1927 and 1937 Lars Christensen led an extensive program of aerial exploration and mapping of the coast of E Antarctica from the Weddell Sea to the Shackleton Ice Shelf. Also allied to whaling were the investigations in physical oceanography, marine biology, and coastal mapping carried out by the Discovery Committee of the British Colonial Office from 1925 to 1939. Their major achievement was the discovery of the Antarctic Convergence.