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Under the 1961 Antarctic Treaty, no claims on Antarctic territory by any nations are recognized, and the entire continent is an international preserve set aside for scientific research.
Although Antarctica was not formally discovered until the early 1800s, its existence was speculated on as early as the second century AD, when the Greek cartographer Marinus of Tyre coined its name. With the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, it became accepted belief that a southern land, acting as a counterweight or “balance” to Europe and the Arctic must exist, but there was wide uncertainly as to how this land fit into the world at large. Many early explorers theorized that the Terra Australis Incognita (Southern Unknown Land) must simply be an extension of Africa or South America. It was only with the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in 1487 and Cape Horn in 1615 that this theory was disproved.
With the sighting of Australia by the Dutch in the 1600s, it seemed for a brief time that the southern land had been discovered. But further explorations showed Australia was an island unattached to the fabled southern continent. But the discovery of large islands like Australia and Tasmania in the Pacific Ocean led new expeditions to search for Antarctica from the South Pacific. Thus British captain James Cook, who today is known for being the first European to land on the coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, was actually looking for the South Pole.
Cook was in fact the first European explorer to sail south of the Antarctic Circle, which he did around 1773, though he never saw the continent. It was not until the 1840s that French, British, and American sailing expeditions confirmed for the world that Antarctica is indeed a continent and not simply a cluster of large islands in the Pacific. The first person whose landing on the Antarctic Continent is firmly documented was the Frenchman Jules Dumont D’Urville, in 1840.
The exploration of Antarctica has continued to be an international effort. One of the most famous expeditions is certainly that of Ernest Shackleton in 1914, with its incredible drama of surviving a shipwreck. Other renowned explorations included those engaged in the race to the South Pole—the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who reached the Pole in 1911, and Englishman Robert Scott, who perished in the attempt.