Who found Antarctica?

Answer 1

The first documented landing on Antarctica was by the American sealer John Davis, apparently at Hughes Bay, near Cape Charles, in West Antarctica on 7 February 1821, although some historians dispute this claim. The first recorded and confirmed landing was at Cape Adair in 1895.

Another Answer

Captain James Cook's charter in 1772 was to find the 'southern continent'. His route was blocked by too much ice, so he never sited the continent. However, his crew drug buckets through the benthos and brought up continental rocks, proving that there was a continent south of the Antarctic Circle. The continental rocks had been dropped into the seabed by icebergs calved off the ice sheet that covers 98% of the continent.

Answer 2

It is not clear who actually saw Antarctica first, since many who may have seen it, did not recognise it for what it was. Captain James Cook was the first to cross the Antarctic Circle on the 17th of January, 1773, and reached a latitude of 67 degrees 15 minutes S. It is not clear whether or not he actually set eyes on Antarctica since the ice pack prevented any further southward progress. In January, 1820, as a result of an earlier expedition where he was blown off course, the British Royal Navy sent William Smith as pilot with Edward Bransfield to search the waters south of the newly claimed South Shetland Islands. It is subsequently claimed that they are the first to see the Antarctic Peninsula. On the 27th of January, 1820, Russian, Fabian Gottlieb von Bellinghausen, becomes the first person to see the Antarctic continent. In January,1821, Bellingshausen returns to the Antarctic and completes a circumnavigation of Antarctica being only the second explorer, after Cook, to do so. In February, American sealer John Davis arguably becomes the first person to land on the Antarctic continent. A Norwegian scientist immigrant to Australia, Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink (1864-1934), became the first man to set foot on the Antarctic when he stepped on to Cape Adare on the 24th of January, 1895. From 1894-95 he devoted his time to exploration of Antarctica. He attempted to reach the South Pole in 1897. During this expedition, he was the first to discover lichen in the Antarctic, and reached a latitude of 78 degrees 5 minutes S.