Volta
Exploration17 January 1773

Cook Crosses the Antarctic Circle

On his second voyage James Cook’s Resolution and Adventure became the first ships to cross the Antarctic Circle (66.5° S). Blocked by ice, Cook never saw the continent.

The Resolution and Adventure among ice islands — by William Hodges (1773)
The Resolution and Adventure among ice islands — by William Hodges (1773)

William Hodges · Public domain · Source

For centuries Europeans believed a great “unknown southern land” lay in the southern hemisphere. The Royal Navy sent James Cook out again in 1772 to find it, and on 17 January 1773 his ships became the first to cross the Antarctic Circle. He crossed it three times on this voyage, and on 30 January 1774 reached 71°10′ S before endless ice turned him back.

Cook wrote that land might lie beyond the ice, but that it could be neither lived in nor used. He never saw the continent, but his voyage ended the old belief in a habitable southern continent.

Show on the map

The map in 1773

Open the full map

OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles © OpenStreetMap contributors

States at the time
Great Britain

People

  • James Cook1728 – 1779

    key figure · British navigator who made three voyages across the Pacific, charting New Zealand and the east coast of Australia, and was killed in Hawaii

Themes that include this event

  • Antarctic Exploration1773 – 2014

    From Cook crossing the Antarctic Circle in 1773 to the first sightings of the continent, Ross’s wall of ice, the race to the pole between Amundsen and Scott, Shackleton’s Endurance, the Antarctic Treaty and the ozone hole — two centuries of reaching for the frozen continent