Which continent was the last to be discovered on earth? Finding out the name of the discoverer: who discovered America first

In what sequence the continents were discovered by Europeans, you will learn from this article.

In what centuries were the continents discovered?

The discovery of continents was consistent and natural. It is known that there are 6 continents on our planet. The largest of them is Eurasia. The second continent in terms of territorial size is Africa. Its shores are washed by two oceans - the Atlantic and Indian. The two subsequent continents, South and North America, are connected by the small Isthmus of Panama. The fifth continent is Antarctica, which is covered with a thick shell of ice. This is the only continent of all 6 continents where there are no permanent residents. created on it a large number of polar stations, scientists regularly visit them and conduct observations. Australia is the last and smallest continent on the planet.

How did the continents get their names?

The continents were named by the Europeans who discovered them. Exact date there is no discovery of Eurasia and Africa. What is known is that even the ancient Greeks knew and distinguished Eurasia into Asia and Europe. Europe is the part of the territory that was located to the west of Greece, and Asia was on the eastern side. Africa became known to the world after the Romans conquered the southern part of the Mediterranean coast.

At the end of the 15th century - early XVI centuries, namely in 1492 he made a long sea expedition and discovered America.

In the 17th century Dutch navigators discovered a fifth continent, which they called Terra Australis Incognita. It stands for Unknown Southern Land. The fifth continent was Australia.

January 16 (28 BC) 1820 The sailing ships Vostok and Mirny approached the coast of Antarctica “covered with lumpy ice,” as Bellingshausen indicated in his diary. So it was opened last continent on Earth - the era of great geographical discoveries has successfully ended.

O. Tikhomirov

Even in ancient times, people believed that in the southern polar region there was a large, unexplored land. There were legends about her. They talked about all sorts of things, but most often about gold and diamonds, with which she was so rich. Brave sailors set off on their journey to the South Pole. In search of the mysterious land, they discovered many islands, but no one was able to see the mysterious mainland.
The famous English navigator James Cook made a special trip in 1775 to “find a continent in the Arctic Ocean,” but he too retreated before the cold, squally winds and ice.
Does it really exist, this unknown land? On July 4, 1819, two ships left the port of Kronstadt Russian ships. On one of them - on the sloop "Vostok" - the commander was captain Thaddeus Faddeevich Bellingshausen. The second sloop, Mirny, was commanded by Lieutenant Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev. Both officers, experienced and fearless sailors, by that time had each already managed to do trip around the world. Now they were given the task: to get as close as possible to the South Pole, “check everything that is incorrect” that was indicated on the maps, and “discover unknown lands.” Bellingshausen was appointed head of the expedition.
Four months later, both sloops entered the Brazilian port of Rio de Janeiro. The teams got a short break. After the holds were replenished with water and food, the ships weighed anchor and continued on their way. Bad weather became more and more frequent. It was getting colder. There were squalls of rain. A thick fog enveloped everything around.
In order not to get lost, the ships had to not move far from one another. At night, by order of Bellingshausen, lanterns were lit on the masts. And if it happened that the sloops lost sight of each other, they were ordered to fire from the cannons.
Every day "Vostok" and "Mirny" came closer and closer to mysterious land. When the wind died down and the sky cleared, the sailors admired the play of the sun in the blue-green waves of the ocean, watched with interest the whales, sharks and dolphins that appeared nearby and accompanied the ships for a long time. On the ice floes, seals began to be seen, and then penguins - large birds that walked funny, stretched out in a column. It seemed that the penguins had thrown open black cloaks over their white clothes. Russian people have never seen such amazing birds before. The first iceberg, a floating mountain of ice, also amazed travelers.
Having discovered several small islands and marked them on maps, the expedition headed for Sandwich Land, which Cook was the first to discover. The English navigator did not have the opportunity to explore it and believed that a large island lay in front of him. The shores of Sandwich Land were densely covered with snow. Ice floes were piled up near them. Having called these places the “terrible south,” the Englishman turned back. In the logbook, Cook wrote: “I take the liberty of saying that the lands that may be located in the south will never be explored.”
Bellingshausen and Lazarev managed to go 37 miles further than Cook and more accurately study the Sandwich Land. They found out that this is not one island, but a whole series of islands. The Englishman was mistaken: what he called capes turned out to be islands.
Making their way between the heavy ice, "Vostok" and "Mirny" tried to find a passage to the south at every opportunity. Soon there were so many icebergs next to the sloops that they had to maneuver every now and then so as not to be “shattered by these masses, which sometimes extended up to 100 meters above the surface of the sea.” Midshipman Novosilsky made this entry in his diary.
On January 15, 1820, a Russian expedition crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time. The next day, from Mirny and Vostok they saw a high strip of ice on the horizon. The sailors initially mistook them for clouds. But when the fog cleared, it became clear that the ships faced a coast consisting of lumpy piles of ice.
What is this? Could the mysterious Southern continent have opened up before the expedition? Bellingshausen did not allow himself to draw such a conclusion. The researchers put everything they saw on the map, but again the approaching fog and snow prevented them from determining what was behind the lumpy ice. Later, many years later, this very day - January 16 - began to be considered the day of the discovery of Antarctica. This was also confirmed by photographs from the air: “Vostok” and “Mirny” were indeed located 20 kilometers from the sixth continent.
The Russian ships were unable to advance even deeper to the south: solid ice blocked the way. The fogs did not stop, the wet snow fell continuously. And then there was a new misfortune: on the sloop “Mirny” an ice floe broke through the hull, and a leak formed in the hold. Captain Bellingshausen decided to head to the shores of Australia and there, in Port Jackson (now Sydney), to repair the Mirny.
The repair turned out to be difficult. Because of it, the sloops stood in the Australian port for almost a month. But then the Russian ships raised their sails and, having fired their cannons, left for New Zealand to explore the tropical latitudes of the Pacific Ocean while winter lasted in the Southern Hemisphere.
Now the sailors were pursued not by the icy wind and blizzard, but by the scorching rays of the sun and the sweltering heat. The expedition discovered a chain of coral islands, which were named after heroes Patriotic War 1812. During this voyage, the Vostok almost hit a dangerous reef - it was immediately given the name stranded Beware.
When the ships dropped anchor near the inhabited islands, many boats with natives rushed towards the sloops. The sailors were heaped with pineapples, oranges, coconuts and bananas. In exchange, the islanders received items useful to them: saws, nails, needles, dishes, fabrics, fishing gear, in a word, everything that was needed on the farm.
On July 21, "Vostok" and "Mirny" stood off the coast of the island of Tahiti. The Russian sailors felt that they were in fairy tale world- this piece of land was so beautiful. Dark high mountains stuck their peaks into the bright blue sky. Lush coastal greenery glowed emerald against the background of azure waves and golden sand. The King of the Tahitians, Pomare, wished to be on board the Vostok. Bellingshausen kindly received him, treated him to lunch and even ordered him to fire several shots in honor of the king. Pomare was very pleased. True, with every shot he hid behind Bellingshausen’s back.
Returning to Port Jackson, the sloops began to prepare for a new difficult voyage to the land of eternal cold. On October 31, they weighed anchor, heading south. Three weeks later the ships entered the ice zone. Now Russian ships were going around the southern polar circle from the opposite side.
"I see land!" - such a signal came from the Mirny to the flagship on January 10, 1821. All members of the expedition flocked on board in excitement. And at this time the sun, as if wanting to congratulate the sailors, looked out for a short moment from the torn clouds. Ahead, about forty miles away, a rocky island was visible. The next day they came closer to him. The mountainous island rose 1300 meters above the ocean. Bellingshausen, having assembled the team, solemnly announced: " Open Island will bear the name of the creator of the Russian fleet, Peter the Great." Three times "Hurray!" swept over the harsh waves.
A week later, the expedition discovered a shore with high mountain. Bellingshausen tried to bring the sloops to him, but an impassable ice field appeared in front of them. The land was called the Coast of Alexander I. The waters themselves washing this land and the island of Peter I were later called the Bellingshausen Sea.
The journey of “Vostok” and “Mirny” continued for more than two years. It ended in his native Kronstadt on July 24, 1821. Russian navigators traveled eighty-four thousand miles on sloops - this is more than double the distance around globe along the equator.
The first to reach the South Pole was the Norwegian Raoul Amudsen at the end of 1911. He and his expedition of several people reached the Pole on skis and dog sleds. A month later, another expedition approached the pole. It was led by the Englishman Robert Scott. This, undoubtedly, was also a very courageous and strong-willed man. But when he saw the Norwegian flag left by Amudsen, Scott experienced a terrible shock: he was only the second! We've been here before! The Englishman no longer had the strength to go back. “God Almighty, what a terrible place!” he wrote in the diary with a weakening hand.
But who owns the sixth continent, where valuable minerals and minerals have been discovered deep under the ice? Many countries claimed different parts of the continent. Mining would, of course, lead to the destruction of this cleanest continent on Earth. And the human mind won. Antarctica has become a world nature reserve - the "Land of Science". Now only scientists and researchers from 67 countries work here at 40 scientific stations. Their work will help to better know and understand our planet. In honor of the expedition of Bellingshausen and Lazarev, Russian stations in Antarctica are named “Vostok” and “Mirny”.

The assumption of the existence of a mysterious Terra Australis Incognita- The southern unknown land - they spoke out long before the first real expeditions were equipped there. Ever since scientists realized that the Earth is spherical, they believed that the areas of land and sea in the northern and southern hemispheres were approximately the same. Otherwise, they say, the balance would be disrupted, and our planet would be oriented toward the Sun with the side with the greater mass.

Once again one has to be surprised at the foresight of M.V. Lomonosov, who in 1763, even before Cook’s expeditions, very clearly formulated his idea of ​​the Southern Land: “In the vicinity of the Strait of Magellan and opposite the Cape of Good Hope, about 53 degrees of midday width, there is great ice, so there should be no doubt that in the great distance the islands and the hardened land are covered with many and never-falling snows, and that a large expanse earth's surface near the South Pole is occupied by them than in the north".

An interesting point: at first the prevailing opinion was that the southern continent was much larger than it actually was. And when the Dutchman Willem Janson discovered Australia, he gave it a name based on the assumption that it was part of that very Terra Australis Incognita…

Off the coast of Antarctica. Photo: Peter Holgate.

The first who managed, albeit against their own will, to cross the Antarctic Circle and, in all likelihood, see Antarctica, became the Dutch. In 1559, a ship commanded by Dirk Geeritz, in the Strait of Magellan was caught in a storm and was carried far to the south. Having reached 64 degrees south latitude, the sailors saw "high land". But apart from this mention, history has not preserved any other evidence of a possible discovery. As soon as the weather permitted, Geeritz immediately left the inhospitable Antarctic waters.

Dutch galleon of the 16th century.

It is possible that the incident with the ship Geeritsa was not the only one. Already in our time, shipwrecks, clothing and kitchen utensils dating back to the 16th-17th centuries have been repeatedly found on the coast of the Antarctic islands. One of these wrecks, belonging to an 18th-century Spanish galleon, is kept in the museum of the Chilean city of Valparaiso. True, skeptics believe that all this evidence of shipwrecks could have been brought to Antarctica waves and currents.

IN XVII-XVIII centuries French navigators distinguished themselves: they discovered the islands of South Georgia, Bouvet and Kerguelen, located in "Roaring Forties" latitudes The British, not wanting to lag behind their competitors, also equipped two expeditions in a row in 1768-1775. They became an important stage in the study of the southern hemisphere.

Both expeditions were led by the famous captain James Cook. He repeatedly crossed the Arctic Circle, was covered with ice, crossed 71 degrees south latitude and was only 75 miles from the shores of the sixth continent, but an insurmountable wall of ice prevented him from reaching them.

Cook's expedition ship Endeavor, a modern replica.

Despite the failure to find mainland land, Cook's expeditions overall produced impressive results. It was found that New Zealand is an archipelago, and not part of the southern mainland, as previously thought. In addition, the coasts of Australia, vast areas of the Pacific Ocean were examined, several islands were discovered, astronomical observations were carried out, etc.

In Russian literature there are statements that Cook did not believe in the existence of the Southern Land and allegedly openly declared this. Actually this is not true. James Cook argued just the opposite: “I will not deny that there may be a continent or significant land near the pole. On the contrary, I am convinced that such a land exists, and it is possible that we have seen part of it. Great cold, a huge number of ice islands and floating ice - all this proves that there must be land in the south.".

He even wrote a special treatise "The Case for the Existence of Earth Near the South Pole", and named the open South Sandwich Islands Sandwich Land in honor of the First Lord of the Admiralty, mistakenly believing that it was a protrusion of mainland land southern continent. At the same time, Cook, faced with the extremely harsh Antarctic climate, came to the conclusion that further research was pointless. Since the mainland “being open and examined, it would still not be of benefit to navigation, geography, or other branches of science”. It was probably this statement that for a long time discouraged the desire to send new expeditions to the Southern Land, and for half a century the harsh Antarctic waters were visited mainly only by whaling and hunting ships.

Captain James Cook.

The next and perhaps most important discovery in history Antarctica was made by Russian sailors. In July 1819, the first Russian Antarctic expedition started, consisting of two Russian Imperial fleets "Vostok" and "Mirny". The first of them, and the detachment as a whole, was commanded by a captain of the 2nd rank, the second by a lieutenant Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev. It is curious that the goals of the expedition were exclusively scientific - it was to explore the remote waters of the World Ocean and find a mysterious southern mainland, penetrating "to the furthest latitude that can be reached".

The Russian sailors completed their assigned tasks brilliantly. On January 28 (according to ship “mean astronomical” time, which was 12 hours ahead of St. Petersburg), 1820, they came close to the ice barrier of the Antarctic continent. According to them, there was "ice field dotted with mounds". Lieutenant Lazarev spoke more definitely: “we met hardened ice of extreme height... it extended as far as vision could reach... From here we continued our path to the east, trying to go south whenever possible, but we always met an icy continent”. This day is now considered the opening day Antarctica. Although, strictly speaking, the Russian sailors did not see the land itself then: they were 20 miles from the coast, later called Queen Maud Land, and only the ice shelf appeared before their eyes.

It is curious that just three days later, on the other side of the continent, an English sailing ship under the command of captain Edward Bransfield approached the Antarctic Peninsula, and land was allegedly visible from its side. The captain of the American hunting ship said the same thing. Nathaniel Palmer, who visited the same place in November 1820. True, both of these ships were engaged in fishing for whales and seals, and their captains were interested primarily in commercial gain, and not in the laurels of discoverers of new lands.

American whaling ships in Antarctic waters. Artist Roy Cross.

In fairness, we note that, despite a number of controversial issues, recognition and Lazarev discoverers Antarctica deservedly and fairly. January 28, 1821 - exactly one year from the date of meeting with "ice continent"- Russian sailors in sunny weather clearly saw and even sketched the mountainous coast. The last doubts disappeared: not just an ice massif, but snow-covered rocks extended to the south. The open land was mapped as the Land of Alexander I. It is interesting to note that for a long time The land of Alexander I was considered part of the mainland, and only in 1940 it became clear that it was an island: under a multi-meter layer of ice shelf, a strait was discovered separating it from the continent.

During the two years of sailing, the ships of the first Russian Antarctic expedition circumnavigated open continent, leaving more than 50 thousand miles behind the stern. 29 new islands were discovered, and a huge amount of various research was carried out.

The sloops “Vostok” and “Mirny” off the coast of Antarctica. Artist E.V.Voishvillo.

The first person to set foot on the land - or rather, the ice - of the southern continent, in all likelihood, was the American hunter John Davis. On February 7, 1821, he landed from a fishing vessel on the shore in West Antarctica near Cape Charles. However, this fact is not documented in any way and is given only from the words of the sailor, so many historians do not recognize it. The first confirmed landing on the ice continent took place 74 years (!) later - on January 24, 1895. Norwegian

The last unknown continent

Early in the morning of July 17, 1819, a Russian naval expedition set out from Kronstadt on a long voyage on two sloops - “Vostok” (captain Thaddeus Bellingshausen) and “Mirny” (captain Mikhail Lazarev), with 190 people on board the ships. The leaders of the expedition are experienced sailors: Bellingshausen took part in the first Russian circumnavigation under the command of Ivan Krusenstern; Lazarev completed a three-year voyage from Kronstadt to the shores of Alaska and back. This time they were given a particularly serious task: to penetrate through the ice of the Southern Ocean as close as possible to the South Pole, discovering unknown lands along the way, “without leaving this enterprise except in the face of insurmountable obstacles,” said the instructions to the head of the expedition, Bellingshausen.

Mikhail Lazarev

Only half a century has passed since the thousand-day voyage of the famous James Cook, stopped by ice southern ocean and who declared upon his return from his second circumnavigation in his book “Journey to the South Pole and Around the World”:

“I can safely say that no person will ever dare to penetrate further south than I managed.”

Thaddeus Bellingshausen

The Russian expedition set out with the intention of going south along the routes that the English navigator had passed. It was a long way to the goal. Copenhagen, London, Portsmouth, Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro... Only at the end of November "Vostok" and "Mirny" headed for South Pole. Description made west bank South Georgia Islands, a volcanic island discovered in the South Sandwich Islands group. Snow, ice, and fog accompanied the ships. The day of January 27, 1820 was just as foggy and inhospitable, when a point with coordinates 69°21’ 28” south latitude and 2°14’ 50” west longitude was reached. Bellingshausen wrote in his ship's log: “A continuous ice field dotted with hillocks.” Lazarev: “...we encountered hard ice of extreme height.” Studying navigation maps The expedition showed that on that day they were near the coast of the Antarctic continent, which 109 years later was named Princess Martha Coast by Norwegian researchers.

Thus, a huge continent covered with ice was discovered. But the careful and precise Bellingshausen wanted to make sure of this by approaching the ground itself. Three attempts were made to approach the mainland, but blocks of ice prevented ships from entering. More than a hundred days passed in continuous sailing; they covered almost the entire continent - up to the twentieth meridian. Bellingshausen gave the order to go north to Australia for rest. The ships spent a whole month in the port of Sydney, healing their wounds, caused by ice, and then headed south again.

Storms, fogs, icebergs - nothing could stop the brave sailors. For the sixth time they crossed the Antarctic Circle and in January 1821 discovered the island of Peter I, and soon the mountainous coast of the south polar continent, calling it the Coast of Alexander I. From here the sloops turn to the South Shetland Islands, and Russian sailors are the first to explore them.

The approaching Antarctic winter forces Bellingshausen to leave the polar waters and begin the journey back to his homeland. On July 24, 1821, after 750 days of sailing, “Vostok” and “Mirny” arrived in Kronstadt.

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