Who travelers discovered Antarctica?The answer you will learn from this article.Authenticity, her final discovery occurred in 1820.It is this year begins the story of Antarctica.First, people can only assume that this continent there.
Antarctica - the highest continent on the Earth.More than 2 thousand. Meters of average height above sea level, the surface of Antarctica.Four thousand meters it reaches the center of the continent.
Before you talk about any of the travelers discovered Antarctica, say a few words about the Navigator, who are very close to this great discovery.
first speculation about the existence of the mainland
The participants of the expedition undertaken by Portugal in the years 1501-1502, there were first guess.Amerigo Vespucci participated in this voyage.This Florentine traveler, thanks to the extremely bizarre coincidence of circumstances, gave his name to the title two huge continents.However, the above-mentioned expedition was unable to go further on.LOCATION South, which is quite far from Antarctica.Vespucci testified that the cold was so intense that travelers could not tolerate it.
Antarctica has long attracted people.Travelers assumed that there is a huge continent.James Cook entered before others in Antarctic waters.He debunked the myth that existed that there is Terra Australis huge.However, the navigator had to just assume that near the pole may be the continent.He believed that it proves the presence of a lot of ice islands and floating ice.
Lazarev and Bellingshausen
Antarctica was discovered by the expedition, headed by explorers from Russia.Forever had two names are inscribed in the history of geographical discoveries.This FFBellingshausen (years of life - 1778-1852) and MPLazarev (1788-1851).
Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen was born in 1778.He was born on the location of the Baltic Sea island of Saaremaa, Estonia belongs to today.Studied navigator in the Sea Cadet Corps.
Bellingshausen dreamed since childhood of maritime spaces.He wrote that he was born amidst the sea, so like a fish without water, can not live without it.Fabian Gottlieb in the years 1803-1806 participated in the journey (the first circumnavigation committed by Russian sailors) on the ship "Hope", which led the Ivan Kruzenshtern.
Lazarev was 10 years younger.He made three trips around the world for their lives.Navigator was in 1827 in the naval battle of Navarino, and then for almost twenty years, was the commander of the Black Sea Fleet.Among his pupils were such prominent naval commanders of Russia, Vladimir Istomin, Pavel Nakhimov, Vladimir Kornilov.
"Vostok" and "Peace"
Lazarev and Bellingshausen fate brought in 1819.Then the Ministry of the Navy wanted an expedition to the Southern Hemisphere.Difficult journey had to carry out two ships, well-equipped.The commander of the sloop "East" was appointed Bellingshausen.Lazarev led the "Peace".In honor of these ships many decades later be called the first Soviet Antarctic stations.
first opening
expedition in 1819, July 16, started swimming.Briefly formulated as follows its aim: the opening near the Antarctic Pole.Instructs Mariners explore Earth Sandwich (now the South Sandwich Islands, which were once found Cook) and South Georgia, then continue to research to distant latitudes, which only can be achieved.
So this "peace" and "East".It was described in detail the island of South Georgia.Seafarers found that the Earth Sandwich is an archipelago.Cook Islands Bellingshausen named the largest island of the archipelago.It turned out to be made the first prescription instructions.
Opening Antarctica
could be seen on the horizon icy expanses.Ships continued to edge their way along from west to east.In 1820, January 27, the expedition crossed the Antarctic Circle.And the next day, the participants have come close to the Antarctic continent, its ice barrier.Just over 100 years later, these places are visited again.This time it was the Norwegian explorers of Antarctica.They gave him the name of Princess Martha Coast.
Bellingshausen January 28 wrote in his diary that, continuing to move south, the expedition discovered in the afternoon ice that was walking through the snow presented in the form of white clouds.Seafarers, passing south-east two miles, turned out to be already "in solid ice."The vast field dotted with hillocks, stretched around.Since Antarctica was discovered by the expedition, headed by explorers Bellingshausen and Lazarev.
The conditions are much better visibility of the ship was Lazarev.The ship's captain saw "ice extreme heights," which stretched to the horizon.He was part of the ice sheet that covered Antarctica.And on January 28 this year, it went down in history as the date when the Bellingshausen and Lazarev discovered the Antarctic continent.Twice (2 and 17 February), "Peace" and "East" comes close to the shores of Antarctica.According to the instructions, should look for "unknown land".However, even the most determined of the drafters of the document could not have foreseen such a successful assignment.
Re voyage to Antarctica
approaching winter in the Southern Hemisphere.Ships, shifted to the north, sailed in temperate and tropical latitudes of the Pacific Ocean.So a year has passed.Then, "peace" and "East", which commanded Bellingshausen and Lazarev headed for Antarctica again.They crossed three times the Antarctic Circle.
Island Peter I
eyes of travelers in 1821, on January 22 brought an unknown island.He was named Bellingshausen Island of Peter the Great.January 28, exactly one year since the discovery of Antarctica, in a sunny, cloudless weather crews watched the mountainous coast, which stretched out of sight to the south.
Earth Alexander I
first appeared on maps Land Alexander I. No doubt there was no more: Antarctica - it's not just ice massif, and currently the mainland.Bellingshausen, however, did not mention even once the opening of the mainland.It was by no means false modesty.Navigator understand that it is possible to draw final conclusions, but after spending the necessary studies on the shores of Antarctica.None of the outlines, or about the size of the continent, he could not make even a rough idea.Many decades have gone on issledavaniya.
study the South Shetland Islands
concluding "Odyssey" sailors explored in detail the South Shetland Islands.Before they had been known only that B. Smith, an Englishman, they watched in 1818.These islands have been mapped and described.In the War of 1812 was attended by many satellites Lazarev and Bellingshausen.Therefore, some of the island in memory of her battles have received the following names: Waterloo, Leipzig, Berezina Smolensk, Maloyaroslavets, Borodino.Later, however, they were renamed the English navigator, that is not quite fair.At Waterloo, among other things (King George - his contemporary title), was founded in 1968, the most northern research station in Antarctica, the USSR called "Bellingshausen".
Returning to Kronstadt
In 1821, at the end of January, Fabian Gottlieb sent ships to the north, badly battered navigation in ice and storms.751 day voyage lasted Russian ships.The length of the journey was about 100,000 kilometers (that is, as long as you get when you go around the equator of the Earth two and a quarter times).At stake were inflicted 29 new islands.Thus began the development and study of Antarctica.
Following the Russian
So Antarctica was discovered by the expedition, headed by explorers from Russia.Two weeks later, after 1820, Jan. 16, Russian expedition led by Bellingshausen and Lazarev, went to Antarctica, Edward Brantsfild, who moved from the South Shetland Islands to the south, saw the snow-covered high bank.It was named this navigator Earth Trinity (ie the Trinity).Antarctica Researchers also saw two mountain peaks.It was the Antarctic Peninsula, the north of his lip stretched to 1,200 km in the direction of South America.On Earth, there is no other such a long and narrow peninsula.
Antarctica for the first time after the Russian sailors saw the company "Enderby" two sealers courts of England, who performed under the direction of John Biscoe travel around the world.In 1831, in late February, came to the mountainous land of the Court.It was adopted by them for the island.Subsequently, this land was defined as a protrusion of East Antarctica.There were names on the map Biscoe mountain (the highest peak on it) and Enderby Land.So Antarctica explorer John Biscoe discovered.This traveler
next year makes another discovery.He meets some of the prime meridian islands small size, behind which there is the mountain of Graham Land (since it was called the land), which continued to Earth Alexander I to the east.Proper names of the seafarer was named a chain of small islands, although he discovered the land was also considered for a long time after the islands.
In the following decade sailing in the Southern Ocean were discovered two or three "banks".However, travelers to any of them did not fit.
The history of the study of Antarctica occupies a special place expedition of the French, which was headed by JSDumont d'Urville.In 1838, in January, two of his ship ("Seele" and "Astrolabe") came into the Pacific from the Atlantic, skirting the south America.The researcher went in search of water, ice-free, deep south, approaching the Antarctic Peninsula, its northern tip, which was named this Earth navigator Louis-Philippe.Dumont d'Urville, coming out into the Pacific Ocean, their ships sent to the tropical waters.However, from Tasmania then he turned south and met at the latitude of the Arctic Circle ice coast, named Adelie Land on behalf of his wife.This happened in 1840, on January 20.The French on the same day landed on the island.We can say that the first time people in this day come to earth of Antarctica, although it was still not the mainland and the island just next to it.
read the article, you know what year discovered Antarctica.Only in 1956, Jan. 5, on the shore of the mainland to take the first Russian explorers.It happened so through 136 years after Antarctica was discovered by the expedition, headed by explorers Bellingshausen and Lazarev.
