Man lands on the continent of Antarctica

A French produced world map from approx. 1530, northern hemisphere on the left and southern on the right.
A large Antarctic continent labeled "Terra Australis" is shown even though there was no evidence at the time for its existence. Also note the absence of Australia which would not be visited by Europeans until the first years of the 1600's.

The idea of Antarctica was first mooted by ancient Greek philosophers. They knew about the Arctic, that they called Arktos, The Bear, after the constellation of the Great Bear, from sailing voyages records, descriptions and stories. They had proven that the world was a sphere and so postulated that there should be something at the pole opposite to the Arctic to balance the world out. They called this undiscovered land mass Ant-Arktos, meaning "opposite the bear". The continent of Antarctica thus appeared on world maps for hundreds of years prior to anyone ever approaching anywhere near it.

The first sighting of Antarctica is now widely acknowledged to have taken place on the 28th (maybe the 27th) of January 1820 during the voyage of two Russian ships, the Vostok and Mirnyi under the command of Captain Fabien (Thaddeus) Gottleib von Bellingshausen during a two year exploratory expedition around the world to discover new lands for the Russian Empire. Bellingshausen's ships were the first to have crossed the Antarctic Circle since Cook nearly 50 years earlier, they did so on the 26th of January 1820.
For many years it was thought that Irishman Edward Bransfield on a British expedition was the first person to sight the Antarctic continent (rather than offshore islands) on the 30th of January 1820 with the ship Williams. The previous year the same ship under the command of captain William Smith had discovered the South Shetland Islands while on a commercial voyage. When he reported what he had found on returning to Valparaiso, Chile, Captain Shirreff of the British Royal Navy chartered the ship and appointed Bransfield as captain to return south the following season and investigate the area further.

The first sighting of Antarctica is now widely acknowledged to have taken place on the 28th (maybe the 27th) of January 1820 during the voyage of two Russian ships, the Vostok and Mirnyi under the command of Captain Fabien (Thaddeus) Gottleib von Bellingshausen during a two year exploratory expedition around the world to discover new lands for the Russian Empire. Bellingshausen's ships were the first to have crossed the Antarctic Circle since Cook nearly 50 years earlier, they did so on the 26th of January 1820.

For many years it was thought that Irishman Edward Bransfield on a British expedition was the first person to sight the Antarctic continent (rather than offshore islands) on the 30th of January 1820 with the ship Williams. The previous year the same ship under the command of captain William Smith had discovered the South Shetland Islands while on a commercial voyage. When he reported what he had found on returning to Valparaiso, Chile, Captain Shirreff of the British Royal Navy chartered the ship and appointed Bransfield as captain to return south the following season and investigate the area further.

The first claimed landing on continental Antarctica was by British-American sealing Capt. John Davis in the ship Cecilia at Hughes Bay on the Antarctic Peninsula on the 7th of February 1821. Some of the crew went ashore for less than an hour to look for seals, this claim cannot be confirmed.

The first undisputed landing on Antarctica didn't happen until much later on January the 24th 1895 at Cape Adare during the whaling voyage of the ship Antarctic led by Henryk Bull. A small boat with six (possibly seven) men on board rowed ashore during calm conditions.

It is not clear exactly who was the very first of this group to set foot on Antarctica, they all did so within a few moments of each other. Norwegian Carsten Borchgrevinck who would later return to this beach with an expedition on the Southern Cross made perhaps the most noise about being the first, while New Zealander Alexander von Tunzelmann and captain Leonard Kristensen also claim to have been the first.

source:https://www.coolantarctica.com./history