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People have some pretty stupid ideas.
From bombing pearl harbor and then sort of just winging it to creating purple-colored
ketchup, we’re often just not great at being smart.
In the realm of bad ideas, having a baby in Antarctica, the most isolated place in the
world with the harshest climate in the world and no advanced medical care, is certainly
up there and yet its been done eleven times.
These Antarctic babies are therefore part of a super-exclusive club—fewer people have
been born in Antarctica than have been to the moon.
I’m all for exclusive clubs—I mean, I’m a proud hotels.com silver member—but having
a baby there just seems a bit reckless.
So why’d they do it?
Ok, so it’s the 1900’s.
Worldwide wars were in fashion, empires were popular until they weren’t, and people realized
Antarctica was a thing.
Britain had this tradition of claiming any land that existed and so they claimed part
of Antarctica and then New Zealand, France, Norway, Australia, Norway again, Chile, and
Argentina did.
Slight problem—the British, Chilean, and Argentinian claims overlapped.
You see, this section is popular since it’s the closest bit to Chile, Argentina, and the
Falkland islands which are Argentinian if you ask Argentina and British if you ask the
4 Eurofighter Typhoons, 2 Chinooks, 2 nuclear submarines, 1 guided missile destroyer, and
1,200 British troops on the islands.
So Britain and Chile get along, Britain and Argentina do not, and Argentina and Chile
sort of passively aggressively don’t since Chile and Britain do.
So bing bang boom competing Antarctic claims and casual conflict.
Most believe the Chileans have a slight advantage in Antarctica since they’re used to being
chilly but this was a classic three-way dispute.
Aside from these three countries, though, basically nobody believed these claims of
sovereignty since there were no permanent residents and no non-scientific activity.
Argentina decided to fix this by making babies.
In 1977, Argentina’s Esperanza Base had a military detachment led by Captain Jorge
Emilio Palma whose wife, Silvia Morella de Palma was pregnant.
At seven months she was flown from Argentina to Esperanza Base and then two-ish months
later she gave birth to Emilio Marcos Palma on January 7th, 1978 of whom there are zero
copyright free images so I hope you enjoy this painstakingly created animation of him.
Argentina was run by dictator Jorge Rafael Videla at that time so, as dictators do, he
then made a law banning any maps of Argentina that didn’t include their Antarctic claim.
In their minds, since they had natural Antarctic nationals they now had Antarctica.
Chile, which was also run by a crazy dictator at the time, wasn’t having any of that so
they sent newlyweds to their Antarctic claim in hopes that they would not only birth their
baby in Antarctica but also conceive them there to strengthen their claim.
This came to fruition when on November 21, 1984 Juan Pablo Camacho Martino came into
existence as the first Chilean to be born in Antarctica.
You’re probably now wondering what Britain was up to during this Antarctic baby boom.
Well, the Falklands War, for one, but also less crazy means of supporting their claim
such as sending researchers and their Navy.
All in all eleven babies were born on the continent—eight Argentinian ones and three
Chileans—and against all odds no moms or babies died.
Nowadays, though both countries have stopped sending women to Antarctica to have their
babies probably realizing that it’s horribly dangerous for both the mothers and babies
or maybe it’s that the countries are not run by crazy murderous dictators anymore.
Nonetheless, they have not stopped trying to assert their claims.
Of the many many research bases from many many countries, Chile’s Villa Las Estrellas
and Argentina’s Esperanza base are the only two to be home to civilians.
Both countries send whole families, including kids, to these bases, and so they both have
public schools.
Chile has gone even further at their base to make it seem like a real town rather than
a research base.
They’ve had a mobile phone network set up by Entel, one of the largest cellular providers
in Chile, so you literally won’t even have roaming charges when going to Antarctica from
Chile.
They even have a post office and a branch of a commercial bank.
It’s just like any other Chilean town… except that it’s not in Chile and the Argentinian
base isn’t in Argentina because nobody really believes these claims.
Overwhelmingly, most countries still just consider Antarctica to be international territory.
Oh well, good effort guys.
If you want to become a crazy dictator…
no no no that’s bad.
If you want to start a war in Antarctica…
no that’s illegal.
If you want to have a baby in Antarctica, you’re going to need to know how to deliver
babies and Skillshare can not teach you that.
Are you crazy!
I mean, I know Skillshare has over 20,000 courses taught by experts on anything and
everything, but you should not be bringing humans into existence off of what anyone on
the internet says.
Just take that motivation and learn something productive like HTML or creative writing or
how to solve a Rubik’s cube by one of the top 1,000 Scottish YouTubers Mike Boyd.
They really have classes on pretty much everything except making babies.
Well, actually, they sort-of have classes on the early steps but what’s important
is that you can try all of this for free for two whole months at https://skl.sh/hai10.