“There is no probability, that any other detached body of land, of nearly equal extent,
will ever be found in a more southern latitude; the name Terra Australis will, therefore, remain
descriptive of the geographical importance of this country, and of its situation on the globe”
That was written in 1814 by Matthew Flinders. He was talking about Australia. Whoops.
[Intro music]
So I said this in my Columbus
video but it bears repeating. People knew that the world was round, or spherical, since the Ancient
Greeks. But of course, since Europe, North Africa, and bits of Asia were all that people knew about,
people like Aristotle and Ptolemy hypothesized that if these were the only lands in the world,
the world would be too top heavy and not in a stable rotation. So there must be some sort of
lands to the south in order to balance things out. Just like for America, names for this hypothesized
land switched around for a while. The first official depiction of it on a map was by Shoner
in 1523. I’d show you a picture, but this is one of the few lost great works of geography.
But in this drawing from 1483, which is just an imagining of an Ancient Greek book by Cicero,
the hypothesized continent is called Teperata Antipodum Nobis Incognita – The Unknown Temperate
Lands on the Opposite Side of the World. Geez, look at you getting fancy with the latin. I know,
right? Would you believe it if I told you I didn’t even have to google that… recently. Anyway,
that’s quite a bit of a mouthful, so in 1570, it was just named Terra Australis,
for the Southern Land. I straight up didn’t have to google that one.
Although, side note for people who watched my Columbus video, look at the name for America on
this map. America Sive India Nova. Which means “America or… New India.” I told you, people
didn’t settle on names for a really long time. So anyway, people went on calling this as yet
unknown, but hypothesized, yet somehow still mapped continent “Terra Australis”
for 250 years. In 1606, a new continent was discovered in the southern hemisphere and
called New Holland. But only the eastern section had been settled, charted, and maped, so it was
still hypothesized that maybe to the west it was still connected to a greater southern landmass,
the Terra Australis. Like in this map from 1744, literally called “A Complete Map of the Southern
Continent.” So, I guess like words just don’t have meaning now if this counts as “complete.”
Anyway, the British started taking over the continent from the Dutch and founded a new colony
named New South Wales. I’ve never understood why people just call everything New this or New that.
I stopped trying to figure that out decades ago. But New South Wales was on the continent of New
Holland. And the British didn’t like that too much so just like when they renamed New Amsterdam New
York, they were looking for a different name for this continent as well. The entire coast
had been charted in 1770 by Captain Cook, so in 1804, Matthew Flinders first suggested the name
Australia, in honor of the fabled Terra Australis. In the quote from the beginning of the video,
he said that no greater land mass would be found in a more southern latitude, so surely this must
be the most southern continent. Australia is just the female version of the latin word for South,
so you know, the British stayed with the tradition of coming up with creative names for things.
It took 20 years before the British government finally adopted the name,
and another 30 years before the rest of the world stopped calling it New Holland.
Alright already, this is a video about Antarctica, when are you
going to start talking about Antarctica? Right now. Where it’s warm. On January 28th,
1820, the Russian Captains von Bellingshausen and Lazarev sighted the coast and then circumnavigated
the continent twice before returning home. They beat the British Captain Bransfield by just three
days. But does it really matter who came in first? I think what really matters is the first person
to set foot on the continent almost a year later. American John Davis. America, [BLEEP] Yeah! You’ll
notice I didn’t call him a captain there, he wasn’t in the Navy, he was just a seal hunter
who happened to land in Western Antarctica. I’ll get to why that name is funny in a minute.
But first, let’s talk about the name in general. Ugh more about names? Yeah,
this one will be quick though. Nobody really knows who named it Antarctica. Antarctica is just
the opposite of the Arctic. In the 1500’s, France named their colony in Brazil “France Antarctique”
and I suppose I could make fun of them for that because haha they were so wrong right? But at
least the French in the 16th century didn’t know better. Roll credits. [DING] Not like the British,
who named Australia Australia in 1824, because it was the most southern continent that ever was or
ever will be. Except… that was four years after the British were second to finding Antarctica.
So by the time they named it Australia, they knew there was a continent more south.
But I guess since Australia was officially taken, by 1890 most people just sort of
started calling it Antarctica. By the way, if you learn nothing else from this video,
it’s Antarctica. Ant-arc-tica. There are two C’s in there. You are no longer allowed to forget that
first C. It was one of the very few place names I required to be spelled correctly in my class.
So now we know there’s a continent weirdly positioned directly on top of the south
pole. So the next big race was to the south pole. The famous Ross Expedition of 1841
went looking for it, but all they found was a 100ft tall ice shelf, and two volcanoes. Yes,
there are volcanoes on Antarctica. Mount Erebus and Mount Terror – quite possibly
the most coolest named volcano of all time. Several expeditions tried and failed to get to the
south pole but the first person to successfully do it was Roald Amundsen from Norway on December 11,
1911. It was a race between Norway and Britain, which Norway won by almost a month. The British
coming in second in Antarctica seems to be a theme. The British did find plant fossils on
the continent though, which confirmed that it was once connected to the rest of the world – which
provided further evidence to the plate tectonics and continental drift theories which were
speculated but still being developed at the time. But what if I told you there
are actually five south poles. There’s the obvious one. The geographic south
pole, which lies at ninety degrees south latitude and… no longitude. You could pick any number,
it’s the same place. For simplicity’s sake it’s either left off entirely or just written
as 0 degrees longitude. It’s the place where all the lines come together – the place that
everyone was racing to. It’s also referred to as “true south.” This is the true south pole,
it isn’t much to look at. So just 180 meters away is the ceremonial south pole. This is pretty much
just a tourist spot where people can go take pictures “of the south pole” without disturbing
any scientific research. The flags surrounding the ceremonial south pole are the Antarctic Treaty
countries, I’ll talk about that in a minute. But if you’re standing on the south pole,
either the real one or the fake one, your compass won’t be spinning. It will still be pointing
towards north. Which, no, is not all around you. It’s actually 2860km away. Wait, what? Yeah you
heard that correctly. First of all, the magnetic south pole is not located on the true south pole.
Most people understand that part since it works the same for the north pole. And like I said,
it’s 2860km away from the geographic south pole. So why on Earth would your compass be telling you
that north is where the magnetic south pole is? Well, since most of my audience is in America,
Canada or Europe – except for the 2.3% of you in Australia – if you took one of your
compasses and went to the southern hemisphere, it would be pointing to the south pole. They
actually have to make southern hemisphere compasses because of this problem. Which
is just the opposite end of the magnet painted, but still, it’s confusing. The earth doesn’t care
or know about the difference between north and south, they are both just the magnetic
poles. So depending on which hemisphere you’re in “north” will be whichever one is closest.
So okay, enough with the tricky word play, what actually happens if you’re standing on the
magnetic south pole with a compass? Does it spin? No, depending on which hemisphere your compass
was manufactured for, it will either be pointing straight up or straight down – the point will be
lining up with the Earth’s magnetic field, which shoots out from both poles. The magnetic poles
themselves are actually pretty wide, so before you even get there, your compass will be tilting up.
The magnetic pole wobbles and moves about 10-15 km every year,
so has to be remeasured and plotted constantly. But there’s another magnetic pole, which can’t be
found with a compass. The Geomagnetic south pole. This is the approximation of the center point
of the magnetic poles. Since the magnetic poles move around year to year and are affected by the
liquid outer core and other layers of the Earth, people much smarter about this than I am came up
with this antipodal model where they approximated a bar magnet going directly through the inner
core. This is supposedly where the magnetic poles wobble around and if they could ever
get their poop in a group, where they would sit forever. The geomagnetic poles barely ever move,
you can’t measure it, and for some reason, the north and south poles are reversed. I’m sure
they have a good reason for that… and I’m sure someone will tell me in the comments.
The last south pole is called the “south pole of inaccessibility,” it’s the center point of
Antarctica; meaning it’s the furthest point from any coastline. It has no geographical
significance and it’s the type of thing people like Gary Johnson would brag about
climbing to. It’s not important, it’s stupid, let’s go back to the geographic south pole.
If you’re standing directly on the south pole, which direction is north? Is it this way? Or
is it this way? It’s actually both, you doofus. In fact, if you’re standing on the south pole,
every direction is north. But what about if you’re standing over here? Then which
direction is north? Nope. That’s actually west.. mostly. Nope. That’s east… mostly. That’s north.
Confusing right? Moving towards the south pole is always going to be south. Moving
away from the south pole is always going to be north. Moving clockwise is east,
and counter clockwise is west. In almost every map you see of Antarctica, the continent is going to
be oriented this way, with the line pointing straight up being the Prime Meridian, or 0
degrees longitude. Not 0 degrees east or west. That doesn’t make sense. It’s just 0 degrees.
And the line pointing down being 180 degrees. So this section is “Western Antarctica” where John
Davis landed. It’s named that because it’s in the western hemisphere. But if you’re standing on the
south pole, Western Antarctica is to your north. Just like… Eastern Antarctica. Okay that’s enough,
this is both confusing and infuriating. Anyway, the Antarctic Treaty divides
Antarctica up into 8 separate territories, with 7 of them being claimed by countries. Officially,
the United Kingdom, New Zealand, France, Norway, Australia, Chile, and Argentina
all have territory under the treaty. They left this space conspicuously unclaimed. Why? Because
America and Russia both have “we get to claim territory in Antarctica whenever we want” cards
according to the treaty, and the other countries are hoping that maybe if they set aside that land,
when it comes time for America or Russia to make their claims, they’ll choose that land.
Even though the territorial claims are recognized by the treaty, the entire continent is politically
neutral. Nobody is allowed to test nuclear weapons or station military forces there. Nobody is
allowed to mine or otherwise extract resources from the continent either. It’s specifically a
scientific preserve. In fact, they basically copy-pasted the Antarctic Treaty in order to
make the Outer Space Treaty, which treats the heavenly bodies, like the moon and Mars, exactly
the same. Currently, 29 countries have research stations there, with a population of about 4000.
It’s currently summertime there so its population is at its annual high. You may have heard that 3
years ago, the super shallow dating app Tinder was able to match up 2 NSF researchers who were
45 minutes away from each other via helicopter. So really, you no longer have an excuse.
So the next time you’re stranded in Antarctica and you’re using your compass to find your way north,
maybe you should double check what hemisphere your compass was made for,
also make sure that you never forget how to spell Antarctica, because now, you know better.
Hey guys if you enjoyed that video, or you learned something, make sure to give that like button
a click. If you’d like to see more from me, I put out new videos every weekend, so go ahead
and circumnavigate that subscribe button. Also make sure to find me on Facebook, and Twitter,
and join us on the Reddit. But in the meantime, if you’d like to watch one of my older videos,
how about this one?
[Outro music]