>>512494680
Letโs talk about Antarctica, /pol/; this is the normie history of Antarctica sources from Wikipedia
>In the Western world, belief in a Cold Landโa vast continent located in the far south of the globe to "balance" out the northern lands of Europe, Asia and North Africaโhad existed for centuries. Aristotle had postulated a symmetry of the earth, which meant that there would be equally habitable land south of the known world.
A bold assumption for one so wise as Aristotle, but for those more familiar with his work, I am sure you know exactly what he is talking about.
>In 1473 Portuguese navigator Lopes Gonรงalves proved that the equator could be crossed
This is just an incredibly fun fact: people literally did not know the equator could be crossed by sea in the early 1400s. So much was unknown about the world in those days...
>The doubling of the Cape of Good Hope in 1487 by Bartolomeu Dias first brought explorers within touch of the Antarctic cold, and proved that there was an ocean separating Africa from any Antarctic land
This was when it was noticed something was missing, but what? Magellan found some cool shit in the early 1500โs, but it just sparked more curiosity
>The search for this great south land or Third World was a leading motive of explorers in the 16th and the early part of the 17th centuries
>>in 1642 Tasman showed that even New Holland (Australia) was separated by sea from any continuous southern continent.
How could they determine Australia nor the cape of Africa werenโt their theoretical southern landmass? Were they looking for something specific? What an odd thing to say, if they knew where the continent was, they could just head south from anywhere, but they were SEARCHING for a particular landmass and knew very well when they did not find it.
>In 1771, Yves Joseph Kerguelen sailed from France with instructions to proceed south from Mauritius in search of "a very large continent."
How odd again.
(Cont)