The Discovery of Antarctica
Essay 1
The Discovery of Antarctica According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, discovery means: “the act of finding or learning something for the first time, the act of discovering something.”1 With this definition in hand, the discovery of Antarctica is something that may not officially be determined. As it sits now, 1820 is the official discovery year with three reported sightings of the continent within months of each other. The speculation over the true discovery date and discoverer of Antarctica comes with the multiple just reasons. Antarctica may be defined as discovered to some when the proposal of Terra Australis (the vast continent on the southern part of the earth to balance out the globe) which occurred as early as the first century. Also there’s a belief that previous excursions had opportunities to have seen the continent and not reported it. The sealing rush of the 18th and 19th centuries may have also been a point in time where Antarctica could have been spotted and unofficially discovered. Debates have also formed over whether reporting the continent but not having knowledge that it was a continent counts as discovery or whether the discovery wasn’t official until the mainland of Antarctica was seen and deemed a continent. A variety of arguments defending when one believes Antarctic was discovered certainly exists, whether it’s once land was known to be there, the sighting of ice shelves, islands and mainland or when the mainland was finally reached. Beginning in the sixth century BC, philosophers and other educated persons began research on space and earth. Pythagoras led the way in map innovation by declaring that the world is spherical and not flat as presumed. Where Pythagoras left off, Aristotle picked up, going even further and suggested that the earth was symmetrical, meaning that there had to be land in the south as there was in the north. In the first century AD, Ptolemy further expanded on Aristotle’s work by mapping how he believed
The Discovery of Antarctica According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, discovery means: “the act of finding or learning something for the first time, the act of discovering something.”1 With this definition in hand, the discovery of Antarctica is something that may not officially be determined. As it sits now, 1820 is the official discovery year with three reported sightings of the continent within months of each other. The speculation over the true discovery date and discoverer of Antarctica comes with the multiple just reasons. Antarctica may be defined as discovered to some when the proposal of Terra Australis (the vast continent on the southern part of the earth to balance out the globe) which occurred as early as the first century. Also there’s a belief that previous excursions had opportunities to have seen the continent and not reported it. The sealing rush of the 18th and 19th centuries may have also been a point in time where Antarctica could have been spotted and unofficially discovered. Debates have also formed over whether reporting the continent but not having knowledge that it was a continent counts as discovery or whether the discovery wasn’t official until the mainland of Antarctica was seen and deemed a continent. A variety of arguments defending when one believes Antarctic was discovered certainly exists, whether it’s once land was known to be there, the sighting of ice shelves, islands and mainland or when the mainland was finally reached. Beginning in the sixth century BC, philosophers and other educated persons began research on space and earth. Pythagoras led the way in map innovation by declaring that the world is spherical and not flat as presumed. Where Pythagoras left off, Aristotle picked up, going even further and suggested that the earth was symmetrical, meaning that there had to be land in the south as there was in the north. In the first century AD, Ptolemy further expanded on Aristotle’s work by mapping how he believed