When Was Antarctica Discovered?

Antarctica, the last continent to be discovered, was long theorised by geographers as a hypothetical southern landmass ("Terra Australis") to balance the northern continents. Captain James Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle in the 1770s but never sighted land through the ice. The continent was first definitively seen in 1820 — credit is shared among three expeditions that sighted it within months of each other: a Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, a British expedition under Edward Bransfield, and an American sealer, Nathaniel Palmer. The first confirmed landing on the continent is often attributed to an American sealing captain, John Davis, in 1821, though this is debated. The frozen, hostile interior remained almost completely unexplored for decades. The early 1900s became the "Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration," featuring famous expeditions by Roald Amundsen (who reached the South Pole first, on 14 December 1911), Robert Falcon Scott (who reached it weeks later but died on the return), and Ernest Shackleton legendary survival journey. Today Antarctica is governed by the Antarctic Treaty and dedicated to peaceful scientific research.