Second Decade

For most of human history, Antarctica was more of a concept than a reality. Geographers from ancient times and voyagers in the Age of Discovery supposed there was a continent at the bottom of the world, but no one had actually seen it, and some, like Captain Cook, declared that there was nothing useful down there at all. Then, quite suddenly, at the end of the Second Decade, the envelope of humanity’s geographic knowledge stretched just far enough to enable discovery of the icy islands that lie at Antarctica’s northern tip. Exactly who “discovered” Antarctica is not entirely clear, both because there are differing definitions of what “counts” both as discovery and as Antarctica. But we know it happened in 1819 or 1820, and one of the discoveries coincided with the single deadliest disaster ever to occur on the frozen continent.  In this episode, Dr. Sean Munger will paint the historical context in which the discovery of Antarctica occurred, and he’ll take you onto the ships and into the icy waters of the