Thaddues von Bellingshausen
(Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen)

          On 27 January 1820, Russian admiral, Thaddeus von Bellingshausen (Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen) sights an icefield at 69°S and 2°W ‘which seemed to be covered with small hillocks’. Without even knowing it, Bellingshausen has made a historic sighting – the first sighting of the Antarctica continent. The Russian explorer had been dispatched six months previously by Czar Alexander to find southern harbours for the imperial fleet. He has visited South Georgia and been the first to chart South Sandwich Islands. He continues to skirt the pack ice for another month and makes further sightings before retreating northwards for the winter. By then, he had completed a circumnavigation of Antarctica – the second expedition to do so.

          Following British Captain William Smith’s discovery of the South Shetlands, the Royal Navy sends Edward Bransfield to investigate. With Smith as pilot, Bransfield reaches the island and continues southwest. On 30 January 1820, he becomes the first person to see the Antarctic Peninsula. His midshipman, Bone, records that ‘they very unexpectedly saw land to the SW; and at four o’ clock were encompassed by islands, spreading from NE to E. The whole of these formed a prospect the most gloomy that can be imagined, and the only cheer the sight afforded was in the idea that this might be the long-sought after southern continent, as land was undoubtedly seen in latitude 64°.’

Myth of Terra Australis Incognita

First landings