A history of Antarctic exploration

Antarctic history has been formed by the race in the early part of the 19th century to discover Antarctica, it was thought to exist as explorers had already explored the North Pole and assumed that there must be a south pole too, although no one set foot on the continent until at least 1821.

Shackelton and Scott.

Later that century the race continued to make it to the South Pole, including the efforts of the famous explorers Shackelton and Scott.

The result of the influx of explorers from seven nations are that these seven all laid claims to slices of the continent. In 1959 a treaty was signed by the claimant nations to agree to freeze or shelve their claims indefinitely. Its also stated within the treaty that Antarctica be used for peaceful purposes only, all scientific information must also be shared and it is also not to be used for the disposal of Nuclear materials.