On the existence of the sixth continent, peopletheoretically known from the beginning of the XVI century. Expedition of Amerigo Vespucci 1501-1502 explored the polar latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere and landed on the shores of the island of South Georgia. To move further to the pole, the seafarer was prevented by the cold, continuous ice and hummocks. After that, the secrets of Antarctica attracted to her the discoverers. On the maps, the continent appeared long before the foot of the man stepped there, and even before the first people saw the ice-covered land. Previously believed that this continent is the southern extremity of Latin America or even Australia, as, for example, on the map compiled in 1513 Pirirees.
But who discovered Antarctica first?And what does "open" mean? Had seen? Went ashore? Dug a flag? There is no consensus on this. The Russians believe that the Bellingshausen and Lazarev expeditions fell out of honor on the discovery of the continent (January 1820), while the British believe that Edward Bransfield (also in January 1820) discovered Antarctica. Americans confer the laurels of the discoverer of the new continent, Nathaniel Palmer (November 1820). All these three expeditions only saw the banks rising to the sky, but they could not approach them because of the huge ice space. The Frenchman Dumont d'Urville guessed first of all to plant the flag of his country, but he did it, as it turned out, on an island, and not on a vast stretch of land.
The Dutch have their own answer to the question of whodiscovered Antarctica. In their opinion, the captain of the ship Dirk Geeritz made it back in 1559. After the storm raging in the Strait of Magellan, the ship lost contact with the squadron and by mistake went south. When cleared up, the Dutch saw the "high ground" and determined their coordinates - 64 ° S. w. However, Geeritz himself never claimed to be the pioneer of the continent, and we do not know what he meant by "high land" - perhaps it was one of the islands, which is quite a lot on the continental shelf.
In January 1773James Cook approached the "Resolution" and "Adventure" ships to 67 ° S where he was stopped by the ice.Without resting on what was achieved, he returned the following year and reached 71 ° 15 "south latitude, however, as he moved to the south-west of Tierra del Fuego, he never reached land and did not even see it. But to approach the shores of the continent was lucky enough to the American ship "Cecilia" a year after the Russian expedition, in 1821. But people did not land ashore. If, however, to judge who discovered Antarctica after landing on shore, then here we find a discord.
The official date of the first landing of a person onContinental, rather than ice shelves of this mysterious part of the land is considered January 23, 1895. This honor fell to two Norwegians: the captain of the Antarctic fishing ship Christensen and the passenger Karlsten Borchgrevink, the teacher of natural science. The teacher, in fact, persuaded the captain of the industrial vessel, far from the ambitious ambitions, to launch the boat onto the water and to land to the shore. There Borkhgrevink collected samples of rock and described the Antarctic lichen he saw. But Argentine scientists are contesting the primacy of the Norwegians, insisting that it is impossible to find out who discovered Antarctica, since these people did not leave behind any written evidence. Archaeologists have found on the shores of the mainland the remains of houses and household items, which date back to the beginning of the XVIII century. Unknown whalers of unknown citizenship carried their secret to the grave.
Как бы там ни было, заслуга русской экспедиции before mankind is undeniable. Bellingshausen and Lazarev rounded the mainland and proved that it is surrounded on all sides by the seas. The weather in Antarctica is not conducive to advance into the depths: even in summer the ice cover does not melt there. It is thanks to him that the continent is considered to be the highest - its average height is more than 2 thousand meters, and the highest point (Vinson array) is 5140 meters. The discovery of Antarctica entailed no less ambitious and risky plans for humanity to make its way to the South Pole. Laurels of the discovery of the southernmost point of our planet belong to Amundsen (1911-12).
