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Exploration28–30 January 1820

First Sightings of Antarctica

In January 1820 the Russian Bellingshausen and the Briton Bransfield, days apart, sighted the icy coast and land of the Antarctic continent. Who was first is still told differently from country to country.

The sloop Mirny among the ice — by the expedition artist Pavel Mikhailov (1820)
The sloop Mirny among the ice — by the expedition artist Pavel Mikhailov (1820)

Pavel Mikhailov · Public domain · Source

On 28 January 1820 (16 January in the old Russian calendar) the Vostok and Mirny, commanded by Bellingshausen and Lazarev of the Russian navy, saw an endless coast of ice off what is now the Fimbul Ice Shelf. Two days later, on 30 January, the Briton Edward Bransfield sighted and charted the Trinity Peninsula at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, and in November that year the American sealer Nathaniel Palmer saw the peninsula’s coast.

Which of the three first saw the continent is told differently in different countries. Accounts of the first landing differ too, between sealers in 1821 and the crew of a Norwegian whaler in 1895.

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The map in 1820

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States at the time
Russia

People

  • Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen1778 – 1852

    key figure · Russian naval explorer who in January 1820, commanding the Vostok and Mirny, was among the first to sight the icy coast of the Antarctic continent

Before and after

Earlier
1796 Jenner’s Smallpox Vaccination
Later
1823 Monroe Doctrine

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