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A hundred years ago or so, a whaling ship known as the Antarctic came to a halt off the volcanic, wind-battered coast and sent one of their longboats through the through the rough ocean of the Ross Sea to reach the shore.The land was found as part of a journey to unclaimed waters for the purpose of killing whales. Captain Leonard Kristensen and his party were the first people to place their feet on this continent.

The baptism of Antarctica was bathed in blood.The Industrial Revolution was starting to grow and the millions of seals that were slaughtered for their fur, as well as penguins and whales massacred for their oil, were part of what was needed to keep society moving forward.Many thousands of the shy penguins on Macquarie Island were gathered and driven up planks into large kettles of boiling oil, where they were cooked and melted down for the oil in their bodies.

It is only now, after centuries of abuse of Antarctica’s resources, that this Frozen Continent is being appreciated for it’s natural and scientific wonders. Humans have made the decision to forgo the easy money made through destruction of Antarctica’s resources, and instead chosen to treat it as a preserve of nature and science.There are discussions currently underway to establish Antarctica as a world park.Within Antarctica, scientists are more able to explore certain environmental factors such as the Greenhouse Effect and the depletion of our ozone layer.Considering the short and experimental nature of mankind’s occupancy in Antarctica, the reversal has been astoundingly quick.The degree of exploration was limited to a small fraction of coastline and islands, and included only a few routes to the South Pole up until the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year.antarctic cruise

From the time that Antarctica was first explored, its history is littered with fierceness, nationalism, idealism, and uncontrolled killing. Only occasionally would there be any attempts at scientific research.Whaling was stepped up in World War I, as refined oil was used to make glycerin for artillery shells.Whale oil continued to be a commodity after World War II, as the Soviet Union and the United States began to require more of the substance for use as a jet engine lubricant.It was not until the International Geophysical Year that Antarctica was referred to as anything but “Terra Australia Incognita,” a term used by medieval mapmakers to describe this undiscovered southern continent.

The first birth in Antarctic was witness to great controversy and nationalistic pretension and was entirely purposeful.In 1978, Emilio Marcus Palmer was born at Esperanza Base, owned by Argentina in order to reinforce claims by Argentina to large portions of the territory.best antarctic cruise

This occurred nine years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon and placed America’s flag on it as a symbol of America’s dominance over other nations.In 1911, Roald Amundsen’s trek to the South Pole, honoring King Haakon VII of Norway, was the most productive, determined venture of this sort.Although Robert F. Scott and his team also made that trip for the British, they spent a great deal more time on their voyage so that they could collect rock and fossil samples – the weight of which only slowed them down further.

Scott’s team perished as they returned home, having lost the race to the South Pole to Amundsen by one month. They were possibly demoralized by simply not getting there first, but were also likely malnourished and exhausted. These were the first men to martyr themselves for science in Antarctica.A rather unique attempt to stake America’s claim on the territory took place when a Ford Trimotor was flown over the South Pole by Richard Bryd in 1929.It was back in 1821 that the Soviets laid claim to the Antarctica with the journey made by Russian Admiral Thaddeus Bellingshausen past the Antarctic Peninsula.

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