Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - A History of Antarctica

Episode Date: October 29, 2020

Antarctica has been an object of fascination since it was first discovered by explorers in the early 19th century. Despite never having had a permanent human population, or as far as we know even a temporary population, Antarctica does have a history. Perhaps not as long and rich a history as Africa or Asia, but a history nonetheless Learn more about the history of the seventh continent at the bottom world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Antarctica has been an object of fascination since it was first discovered by explorers in the early 19th century. Despite never having had a permanent human population, or as far as we know, even a temporary population, Antarctica does have a history. Perhaps not as long and rich a history as Africa or Asia, but a history nonetheless. Learn more about the history of the 7th continent at the bottom of the world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison. your yoga teacher says that sex traffic children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals, but it's all okay. The Great Awakening is coming.

What is happening? Every week on Conspiratuality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family, and wellness gurus down the right-wing cult spiral in a search for salvation. This episode is sponsored by G Adventures. One of my most memorable moments traveling was getting to visit Antarctica. It was an epic journey that took me to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island, and Antarctica itself. Like thousands of other travelers, I went to Antarctica on the MS Expedition with G Adventures. It was an experience I still talk about to this day.

There is nothing quite like the sight, sound, and smell of landing on a beach with a quarter million penguins. If you'd like to plan your dream trip to Antarctica, go to everything-everywhere.com slash G-adventures, or click on the link in the show notes. The history of Antarctica goes back 175 million years when the Pangaea supercontinent broke up and the landmass which became Antarctica separated from its neighbors, Africa, India, and Australia. At that point, there were actually animals and plants on the land we call Antarctica, but it also wasn't at the bottom of the world this time either. Slowly, over millions of years as Antarctica began to shift south, temperatures dropped and precipitation piled up.

Whatever plants and animals which existed on the landmass died as things got colder, and light during the winters disappeared. As things got colder, the snow and ice began to pile up. Seriously pile up. As moisture in the atmosphere fell as snow, it never left. It piled up so much that today there's over 4.7 kilometers of ice above the surface of Antarctica. As human civilization arose around the world, no one, to the best of our knowledge, ever visited Antarctica or knew of its existence.

However, there was always speculation that there was some land in the size of the sun. South. No one actually had any evidence of a great southern land, but it was a belief held by a great many people. Aristotle said, quote, now since there must be a region bearing the same relation to the southern pole as the place we live bears to our pole, unquote. Aristotle, who I might add was pretty much wrong about everything he thought about the natural world, figured there had to be land masses that balanced each other out on each hemisphere. The term for this unknown land was Terra Australas Incognita, or the unknown southern land. As European explorers set out in the 15th and 16th centuries, they eventually rounded

the Cape of Good Hope in Africa and Cape Horn in South America, and they realized that if there was a land of the South, it was separated by an entire ocean. Captain James Cook, to whom I will probably dedicate a future episode at some point, spent the better part of three years from 1772 to 1775 looking for it. His crew even crossed the Antarctic Circle, because coming the southern most humans at that point. However, they were coming from the Southern Pacific, and that part of Antarctica is well below the Antarctic Circle. After his voyage, he wrote in his journal, quote, I firmly believe that there is a tract of land near the pole, which is the source of most of the ice which is spread over this vast southern ocean, unquote. He, of course,

would later be proven right. You might have noticed that the phrase Terra Australas Incognita sounds suspiciously like some other continent, and that is. is true. Many people thought that Australia was the great southern land. The name Australia was given to it by Matthew Flinders, who circumnavigated it in 1804. Flanders wrote, quote, there's no probability that any other detached body of land of nearly equal extent will ever be found in a more southern latitude. The name Terra Austral Australas will therefore remain descriptive of the geographical importance of this country and of its situation on the globe, unquote. Oops. However, not everyone thought that Australia was the end of the story as far as southern

lands were concerned. The first human to lay eyes on the continent of Antarctica was probably the Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, who on January 27, 1820, saw the great ice shelf of what is today Queen Maudland. This was actually only three days before a British expedition led by Captain Edward Bransfield saw the tip of the Antarctica Peninsula. For a long time, everyone thought that Bransfield's expedition found Antarctica first due to the translations in Bellinghausen's diary. The first person to step foot on Antarctica was John Davis, who was part of an American expedition in 1821 that was looking for seals. Once the existence of the continent was confirmed, the imaginations of explorers wandered to becoming the first person to reach the South Pole. This activity didn't begin in earnest, however, until the 20th century.

In 1901, the first real attempt to reach the South Pole took place with the British Discovery Expedition. This expedition was a who's-whoo of Antarctic explorers with Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Edward Wilson, Frank Wilde, Tom Crean, and William Lashley, all of whom would return to Antarctica on future expeditions. They managed to get to 82 degrees south, which was over 800 kilometers from the pole. However, they did prove that an extended trip into the center of the continent was possible. From 1907 to 1909, Shackleton set out again on the Nimrod expedition. This time, he got much closer to the pole. He and his team made it to 88 degrees, 23 minutes south, a mere 97 miles or 183 kilometers from the pole.

The next expedition, which started in 1910, was the Terra Nova Expedition, led by the aforementioned Robert Scott. This time, they weren't just going to see how far they could go. Their objective was to reach the pole. Scott didn't assume that anyone else would be trying for the pole. while he was making his attempt. He was wrong. The North Pole was reached by a team of Americans in 2009. Norwegian explorer Rold Admondson was going to attempt to reach the North Pole, but when it had been achieved, he quickly pivoted and turned his attention to the South Pole. The race to the South Pole was won by Admondson, who reached it on December 14, 1911. They managed to beat the British by using

sled dogs and skis. Scott and his team reached the South Pole almost a month later on January 17, 1912, on the trip back. Their journals were found later that year, only 12 miles from their rendezvous point, where they were supposed to get supplies. In 1915, Ernest Shackleton, having missed the opportunity at being the first person to the pole, attempted to do the first crossing of the continent. The expedition was a total failure, with their ship having been stuck in ice and destroyed. However, it began one of the most remarkable tales of survival in history, and ended almost a year and a half later with a harrowing voyage across the southern ocean in a small boat and all of his men surviving. After this era of exploration, there wasn't

much attention given to Antarctica for decades. There were whaling ships that visited the peninsula and some small whaling stations, but that was about it. In 1929, American Richard Bird became the first person to fly over the South Pole, and in 1935, American Lincoln Ellsworth became the first to fly across the continent. It wasn't until 1957 that anyone actually returned to the South Pole since it was reached by Scott and Edmondson in 1911. Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first people to summit Mount Everest in 1953, led the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, which crossed the continent overland, competing what Shackleton failed to do 40 years earlier.

During this period of exploration, countries were staking claims in Antarctica. Britain, Norway, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and France have all made claims to the continent. All of the claims are wedges that meet in the South Pole, of like slices of a pie, and many of the claims overlap each other. Brazil, Peru, the United States, Russia, and South Africa have all also reserved the right to make future claims. All of the claims, however, were suspended in 1959 with the signing of the Antarctica Treaty. Officially, the continent doesn't belong to anyone so long as the treaty remains in effect.

Currently, there are about 70 permanent research stations in Antarctica from 29 different countries. The largest station is the American McMurdo Station, which can have, up to 1,200 people during the Antarctic summer. All logistics for the base are done through Christchurch, New Zealand. There is also a permanent base at the South Pole. It's the Edmondson Scott South Pole Station, which is also operated by the American National Science Foundation. There is actually a 995 mile or 1,600 kilometer snow road, which connects the two bases. The road is just compacted snow with filled in crevices. In the summer, the population of Antarctica is

approximately 10,000 people, and in the winter it drops down to about 1,000. There have been people born in Antarctica. In 1978, Argentina sent some families there to help establish their claim. Emilio Marcos de Palma became the first person born on the continent on January 7th of that year. The deadliest disaster in the history of the continent occurred in 1979 when an Air New Zealand sightseeing flight crashed into Mount Arabas, the second highest peak in Antarctica, killing 237 people on board. The British base at Port Lockroy runs a post office, again to establish their claim, which claims to be the southernmost post office in the world. And I mention this just because I've actually sent a postcard

from there, which took the better part of a year to actually arrive. Tourism is the only real industry allowed in Antarctica. Each year, about 30,000 people will visit the continent, the majority of which are on small expedition ships. The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, or IATO, regulates about 95% of the operator. who visit Antarctica. While most of the land in Antarctica is covered with ice, there are some areas known as dry valleys, which are some of the driest, most desolate places on Earth. The cold weather ensures that there's no humidity. The mountain ranges they lie between, blocks snow from falling, and forces extreme catabatic winds to blow down in the valleys, where speeds can sometimes

reach up to 200 miles per hour or 316 kilometers per hour. In 1991, scientists discovered Lake Vostok, a lake of liquid water, which is four kilometers below the surface of the ice. There have been ice cords drilled down to almost the surface of the lake, and at some point there are plans to send a probe into the lake to see if they can find exotic forms of life, which might indicate that life could be possible below the ice in Jupiter's moon of Europa. The future of Antarctica will largely depend on what happens with the ice cap, which sits over 98% of the land, and contains 70% of the earth's fresh water. As the earth warms, more land may get exposed, which could possibly start a race for resources. If that were to happen,

the Antarctica treaty could very well fall apart. For the time being, however, Antarctica will continue to be the least populated, driest, highest, and coldest continent on planet Earth. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackala. Please remember to support the show over at patreon.com, where you can get exclusive merchandise, and to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Leave a five-star review to have your review, Read Online.