Talk:Farthest South

Further than Farthest South?
It is conceivable that "Farthest South" has been surpassed. In fact, it is highly likely that one or more of the nine Apollo space missions to the Moon (8, and 10-17), in a sense, surpassed "Farthest South" when they flew to the Moon while it was declined south of the Equator along its orbit, thus being at such a location that they could have, if they chose, seen over the south pole and beyond. A trip to Alpha Centauri at some future theoretical date would put travellers trillions of miles further "south" of the Earth's equator... nearly 26 trillion! Of course, any voyage into space is just that, "Farthest from Earth", not "Farthest South" or "Farthest North". GBC (talk) 04:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Ga Review
This article was very well done. Congrats. However, for future improvement, try to include less images. I think that about sums it up, not much wrong with this article at the moment. -- Meldshal  [T]   {C}  21:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

... by a European
Does "farthest south by a European" even meet Wikipedia's notability standards? The article includes Magellan's 1521 passage through the straits that now bear his name, while noting that there were people living farther south at the time, and even weasel-wording around that issue. It's really hard to see how that voyage could qualify as "farthest south" when there were already permanent settlements farther south. The only way to justify it would be to claim that "farthest south" really means "farthest south by a white dude". Is Wikipedia an international encyclopedia, or is it a white folks' encylopedia for listing the first European to do thigs that Native Americans had already been doing for generations? Wikipedia is allegedly supposed to be NPOV. But a lot of it is White POV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.68.134.1 (talk) 19:08, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

- see also: "conquest of the South Pole" - what kind of language is that? LNucleus (talk) 02:44, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Maritime and shore party records
I think that it would be a good idea to split the table into maritime and shore party records. This would have the advantage of making it clearer how the records were established, thus showing the development of Antarctic exploration. If we do decide that this is a good idea, maybe each member of the shore party to reach farthest south could be listed (not just the leader, as now). Thoughts? Catiline63 (talk) 16:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Since there is one article about one series of attempts to get further and further south, I think there should just be one table. Would it help to add maritime or shore party to the table somewhere? I guess I look at location and where it says Sea or ice shelf or plateau I know it is maritime or a shore party. I think adding the names of the shore parties would be too much for the table. I did not think to check if they are in the sections on each party - am sure they are in the article for each, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 20:10, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Russian and Soviet explorers
The article totally lacks information about Russian and Soviet exploration. I wonder how it could be FA class with such omissions. Grey Hood  Talk  00:03, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you misunderstand the scope and focus of this article - it is not about Antarctic exploaration in general. This article is about efforts to reach the South Pole, and essentially ends with the Amundsen and Scott reaching the pole in 1911 and 1912. There is a brief "Later history" section, but it is only six sentences long, and focuses exclusively on the subsequent history of the South Pole.
 * Since the record for Furthest South was set when the pole was reached in 1911, and this was before the Soviet Union was even founded, I am not sure what this article omits. My apologies if I have misunderstood what you mean. If you have reliable sources that detail other Russian or Soviet efforts to reach the South Pole which are not in the article, please spell them out. Until then, I have removed the WikiProject Russia tag (as one Russian seacaptain seems to be a bit of a stretch for inclusion). Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 00:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, firstly I believe that it is crucial to mention the expedition of Faddey Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev since they were first who actually saw the Antarctic mainland. Secondly, I believe it is worth mention that the Soviets reached the South Pole of Inaccessibility at the Pole of inaccessibility (Antarctic research station), and the South Pole of Cold at Vostok Station. This is also "farthest south", though by different parameters than latitude. And this is justified also by the fact, that the South Magnetic Pole is mentioned in this article and was one of the goals of a number of explorers. Grey Hood   Talk  15:34, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much. First off, Bellinghausen is already mentioned in the article: "A few days before Bransfield's discovery, on 27 January 1820, the Russian captain Fabian von Bellingshausen, in another Antarctic sector, had dimly sighted the coast of what is now known as Dronning Maud Land. He is thus credited as the first person to see the continent's mainland.[8][15]" Second, since this is a FA and Wikipedia articles follow relaible sources, do you have reliable sources that list the other poles as "Farthest South"s? Finally I note that the South Magnetic Pole is mentioned in the context of an expedition seeking to reach the South Pole, which is the focus of this article. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 15:47, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Bellingshausen's expedition deserves a bit more space, and the order of sentences in that paragraph should be reversed to reflect the chronology of events. Bellingshausen and Lazarev sighted the Antarctic mainland several times, basically proving it was either a continent or a very large archipelago, and they could have gone farther south if it was possible. Also, the expedition was the first to circumnavigate Antarctic mostly between the latitudes 60° and 70° (thus surpassing Cook's achievements on most longitudes, though not his main record). As for the other poles, the connection of them with the main Pole, the South Pole, seems obvious, and minimally they deserve mention in See also section, while few lines in Later history would also greatly improve the article. I do understand that the article is about the race for the South Pole, and there seems to be no other articles on this specific topic, so this article should include at least some information on how and when various South Poles were reached.  Grey Hood   Talk  16:41, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * There is no "obvious" connection between the Russian expeditions you mention and the history of the convergence on the geographical South Pole which is the subject of this article. The Russian expeditions took place decades after the conquest of the pole and had their own specific objectives; they may be important events in the history of modern Antarctic exploration, but they are not relevant here and most particularly are not "farthest souths". As to Bellinghausen and Bransfield, they are mentioned only briefly because, important though their land observations were, neither came near to establishing a farthest south. There are many expeditions, before and after the 1911 conquest, that could be mentioned in a general history, but the focus here is narrower. Any attempt to broaden the scope by including or expanding on non-related expeditions would in my view seriously weaken the article. It is open to you to create an article indicating how these "other South Poles" were reached, and should you do so I will read it with  interest, but adding the information to this article is  not appropriate. Brianboulton (talk) 11:15, 10 March 2011 (UTC)


 * No, there is obvious connection. The attempts to reach the other Poles were obviously connected with the attempts to reach the geographic South Pole and may be viewed as a consequence of the South Pole race. I don't propose to add detailed information about these expeditions to the article, but the brief mention certainly won't do any harm, while it will complete the picture showing when and how all South Poles were reached. And I don't think there is any point to create a separate article for that, since an article about reaching all South poles will coincide with this one for some 90%, while the article about reaching all other poles excluding geographic will look strange and incomplete.
 * As for Bellinghausen's expedition, it really deserves more space, since it was the expedition which discovered the continent where the South Pole is located (unlike Bransfield, Bellingshausen saw the continent several times at different points, and circumnavigated it), since the purpose of this large government-supported expedition was to reach as far south as possible, since it was the first scientific expedition since Cook to successfully circumnavigate Antarctica, and at much more southern latitudes than Cook. Basically, Bellinghausen was the first to sail through many southern waters, and he established that Antarctica was a continent. In fact, there were few as important achievements in the Farthest South story. Grey Hood   Talk  13:51, 10 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The scope of the article is clearly defined by the first sentence: Farthest South was the term used to denote the most southerly latitudes reached by explorers before the conquest of the South Pole in 1911. Bellinghausen did not reach a new farthest south, and the later Soviet / Russian work on other types of poles were after 1911 and not focused on the geographic South Pole, so I do not see the need to include more material on them in this article. These should be included in History of Antarctica - I see Bellinghausen is mentioned in the lead there - which is a "See also" link here. Since Wikipedia follows reliable sources the other question is "Are the any reliable sources which say Bellinghausen did reach a new Farthest South, or that the Soviet / Russian expeditions were Farthest Souths? Otherwise, this sounds like original research. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 14:35, 10 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't claim that any of Russian explorers reached the record geographic Farthest South. However, this article mentions a number of explorers whose achievements were very important steps in the exploration of Antarctic region and the South Pole race, even if they didn't reach the record southern latitudes themselves. Bellinghausen was one of the most important of such explorers, his expedition aimed to reach the most Southern latitudes possible, and for that I have reliable sources. I just want to improve the wording on Bellingshausen in this article, and expand it a bit, so that to reflect the significance of his expedition properly. As for the later Soviet expeditions, they are not a part of the main geographic Farthest South story and likely are not to be found in the sources specifically devoted to it. But they are closely linked to it, and have as much right to be included into this article as most of the Later history section (references there do not establish the direct connection with the Farthest South term). Grey Hood   Talk  15:30, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

The article is about getting as far south as possible, which is 90 degrees south by definition. The "Later history" section is six sentences, each of which is about the history of the geographic South Pole (90 S) after it was first reached in 1911/1912; five of the six sentences mention the (south) pole explicitly and the one that does not is about the Amundsen-Scott Base at the pole itself. I have scanned the History of Antarctica article and do not see any mention of Russian or Soviet exploration of Antarctica in it (beyond a brief mention of Bellinghausen). Why not add the information there (as I do not see how it fits here)? Thanks, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 16:45, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Adding the information to the History of Antarctica is long on my to-do list, but it is a different article and a different task. Thanks for reminding me of that, though. As for this article, in the present state it looks incomplete for me; it is like reporting some sport race but speaking only about the people who won it or led it at some point of its duration, and not mentioning the other important participants, nor the closely related races which followed. This is not good for any article. The later history of the South Pole is obviously related to the South Pole race, but the later attempts to achieve the other South Poles are also obviously related to the original South Pole race, since they were inspired by it. Grey Hood   Talk  00:41, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * In a spirit of compromise I have added a couple more lines on Bellinghausen, mentioning his circumnavigations and recording his southerly latitude of 70° in January 1821. I continue to oppose any attempt to include details of the modern Russian expeditions in this article. Apart from their Antarctic location they have no link whatever to the farthest south story which effectively ended in 1911-12. The brief "Later history"   records the establishment of a permanent scientific base at the Pole, as a brief rounding of the farthest south story. It is not there to summarise later activities. Brianboulton (talk) 17:00, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Really, this is very limited view on the full representation of the subject in this article. As I've already said, minimally the Soviet expeditions deserve mention in the See also section, as well as the Farthest North and the North Pole links, by the way. The links to the closely related subjects are expected in any good article.
 * And I think that the close relation between the geographic South Pole, and the South Pole of Cold and the South Pole of inaccessibility is self-obvious and deserve at least a pair of lines. This just adds an important detail to the picture, that the race for South Poles didn't ceased even with the achievement of 90° South.
 * As for the additions on Bellingshausen, thanks, but I'll see if I could fix them myself soon since the the wording is not exactly what I have expected. Grey Hood   Talk  00:41, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You might do well to show a little more respect towards your fellow-editors. When you wish to add or contribute to an article you should not, as you did, open the discussion with an inaccurate and belligerent comment. You should not, as you did, brush aside the polite and reasonable comments put forward by Ruhrfisch to merely restate your own position. You should not, as you did, ungraciously dismiss a compromise that was suggested with a view to addressing your concerns. To say the least, this attitude is unhelpful. As to your comment re Bellinghausen, this excerpt does not need further "fixing" or additional material; the expedition is not central to the farthest south quest and its achievements should be amplified elsewhere. Brianboulton (talk) 11:20, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but with such posts you are making this discussion less calm and neutral than it should be. Please avoid such evaluations of other persons and their actions as "ungraciously". I admit though, that to a great extent I should blame myself for this situation. If my comments in some way disturbed you, sorry again, I didn't mean that. It was not my intention to do any "belligerent" comments, and if you got such an impression from my first comment, sorry yet again, for one last time. Also, please, bear in mind that it was not my intention to challenge the status of this article as FA or initiate its review, but to indicate something that is obvious and serious omission in my opinion (seems I have expressed it too strong). Now I see that I shouldn't have started this discussion at all, but just should have added few referenced and relevant lines to the article, which nobody would ever find alien there.
 * This discussion has shown, and I have admitted it before, that the additions proposed by me are not "central" for the topic, but this doesn't mean that they are unimportant to the topic or non-related to it. I did change my inititial position in the course of this discussion, and in a spirit of compromise I have already agreed in my third post that my proposals might take very few space in the article, just several additional lines. And I should say that I find rather unusual your staunch opposition to adding a bit more of less important, but relevant content. I would understand it, if this article was called the "List of Farthest South records", but this is not a list but a comprehensive encyclopedic article, which should cover the main subject and provide links to the main related subjects. I'm sure that most readers will find it useful and natural to have the links to the Farthest North and other Poles here. It is highly unusual that you resist even the proposal of adding this to the See also section. Hope you'll not be carried away by the wrong course of this discussion and change your mind.
 * As for the Bellingshausen's expedition, your wording is just not accurate enough according to my knowledge, and later I'll try to fix it. Also, I'm going to add at least one line on the fact, that it was an aim of Bellingshausen's expedition to get as far south, as possible, which is obviously relevant to the subject. Grey Hood   Talk  12:35, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * P.S. As for this comment, your quick turn to the harsh language and discussing the actions of other editors (especially what they must not) really strikes me as something unnecessary, undeserved and inappropriate. Hope we will return to the normal discussion, without such things. I've tried to resolve the standing misunderstanding in the last post, and hope you understand my intentions more clearly from now on. Grey Hood   Talk  13:03, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

First, this is a FA and as such is held to the highest standards that Wikipedia has. One of these (and one of the five pillars) is verifiability, which means that articles are based on what reliable sources say, not Greyhood's (or anyone else's) knowledge. Second, please read WP:See also - I do not see the inclusion of these topics under that guidleline. Third, as a possible solution to the links, would some sort of Polar Navbox be one way to add such links? This would be on many articles, not just this one. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 13:32, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

PS As one example of the fallibility of personal knowledge, I was sure that verifiability was one of the five pillars. When I checked the actual source, it is not. That is why we base articles on relaible third-party sources. If there are such that say these other poles are part of the Farthest South history / tradition, then there is a case for adding them here. If not, then short of a navbox or possible See also links, I do not see any ground for their inclusion, no matter how strong your personal opinions. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 13:37, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As to Greyhood, it is a little rich to start complaining about my "making this discussion less calm and neutral than it should be". Read your own posts. If you begin a thread by belittling careful work, you will be taken to task. That, and the subsequent tone of your posts, is what has soured this discussion. Now, since you are claiming that my summary of the achievements of the Bellinghausen expedition is "inaccurate", let us see your information and  sources. As to your other concern, I agree with Ruhrfisch, above.  Brianboulton (talk) 15:08, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I've already said sorry for the wrong tone of the discussion. I've written these posts in good mood and without intention to belittle anything, I just wanted to indicate the omissions and draw more attention to them. I might not have been careful enough with expressing myself; but I'm not a native speaker of English afterall. Unlike you, however, I didn't went into the personal dimension and didn't discussed anyone personally until you started it.
 * P.S. I've realised just now that you are a major contributor to this article. This explains your conduct and harsh reaction; but really, my initial posts are neutral, since I was not addressing you specifically. I should congratulate you with a very good work on this article. But also I should remind you that it is not so easily noticable and evident for everyone that you are the author of the article, when we start discussing it on the talk page. Also, that your comment is a clear sign of WP:OWN. You are not the only person to decide what should be included into this article and what shouldn't, and you should not decide what must not be allowed to other editors. Grey Hood   Talk  15:35, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've already thought about the polar navbox. I'm aware of all the guidelines you have mentioned, and I suggest you to read the guidelines more carefully yourself. WP:See also gives an example with a phrase "made a similar achievement" which looks like justifying the addition of similar achievements in the case of this article as well ;) while this is just an example, basically the guideline advices to add the related links according to common sense and editorial judgement. The relation between different South and North Poles and attempts to achieve them is self-obvious, common sense thing. Furthermore, WP:See also advices, if possible, to add the related subjects to the body of the text if the article is aimed to be good and well-developed. And such related subjects, as representing the Farthest South story in literature and popular culture or adding the information on related developments with the other Poles, do deserve the place in this article.
 * Also, please read the others' comments more carefully. I've already stated that I want to make some referenced additions and fixes, and I've never intended to insert any non-verifiable "personal knowledge" to the article, just a sourced information on the part of Bellingshausen and reasonably related information on other Poles to the Later history or See also (as much reasonably related, as the later history of the South Pole). So please, let's avoid further misunderstanding and straw man arguments. Again, the navbox is a very good idea, and if I have time I'll create it later, though I'd welcome if someone else make it. Grey Hood   Talk  15:35, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

New thread
First, I accept your apology for the unfortunate beginning to this discussion and for the tone in which you pursued your argument. Perhaps you were driven by an excess of enthusiasm; let us assume that to be the case. If my tone became unnecessarily harsh, then I in turn apologise for that.

I imagined that you would have checked at the beginning of the discussion that I was the principal editor of the article. Since you have raised the question of WP:OWN, may I draw your attention to Ownership and stewardship. All my concerns have been expressed within the bounds of that policy guideline.

It seems to me that your overriding concern is to introduce material relating to Russian Antarctic expeditions to this article. Your problem is that Russian expeditions played little or no part in the history of convergence on the South Pole. Bellinghausen's expedition is the only pre-1912 Russian expedition of any consequence; in his search for the Antarctic continent he achieved a 70° southern latitude (69° 52' according to Mill) which was creditable, but not a record. So he is a bit-part player in this particular story, along with Bransfield, Edmund Fanning, Dumont D'Urville, John Davis, etc – some of whom don't even get a mention in this article. All these made significant contributions to Antarctic exploration, but not to the story of farthest south. That is why the Bellinghausen information has to be limited to the outline information such as I have proposed. He's still getting a lot more attention than, say, Bransfield. If you want to merely tinker with the wording, that's fine, but let us have no further expansion.

I think you are quite alone in your insistence that the 20th century Russian expeditions have any meaningful link to the quest for farthest south. If you wish to add See also or External links, or create a navbox, there is no problem with that. However, I think your energies would be better directed to improving the Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen article, which is in poor shape, or working on articles relevant to the modern Russian expeditions, instead of tagging on to this article. Brianboulton (talk) 01:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, this seems reasonable. You are really very good and respectful editor, and I would like that there will be no further misunderstandings between us. You have created a great number of impressive articles related to one of my favorite topics, the polar exploration, and I want to say thanks to you for that great work. Later I'll try to make a navbox, and perhaps add few of the most important links to the See also. As for Bellingshausen, it is my intention to create an article about the First Russian Antarctic Expedition, where I'll place the information from the books I have. Then I may return here and add (with references) the two points to the current wording of this article: 1) Bellingshausen's expedition was prescribed a specific aim to reach as far South as possible 2) Bellingshausen claimed that he had seen the continent (he called it "ice continent", "continent of ice", etc.), but it seems he just wasn't concerned with the question if he was the first to see that land. Grey Hood   Talk  02:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, I think that it would be nice to expand this article with very few and very brief, tiny histories of other explorers who were known to have an aim to reach the Farthest South, and who achieved something on their way, even if they didn't set the records. But that's just a general wish, I have no additional specific proposals on that right now. Grey Hood   Talk  02:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks - in terms of articles where the other poles could be mentioned or have more, I note that the article on the South Pole barely mentions the pole of inaccessibility (map and an external link) and says nothing of the pole of cold. History of Antarctica could also mention these and the Soviets in much more detail. Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 03:10, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Here is the navbox: Template:Polar exploration. Hope you will help expanding it if I have missed something important. It is big, so should be added to articles in collapsed state. Grey Hood   Talk  01:40, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much for making this! I will check it out in more detail later, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 02:31, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

United Kingdom
Surely James Cook was a subject of Great Britain rather than the United Kingdom that came about in 1801, some 22 years after his death. I don't know how to change it due to the Flagicons etc... Petsco (talk) 09:40, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Changed Petsco (talk) 12:46, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you! A nice bit of tidying-up on your part. Brianboulton (talk) 17:04, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Amerindians
The natives of South America, reached the 54th parallel south and the Drake Passage long before Europeans arrived on the scene. But this is barely mentioned in the article.--MacRusgail (talk) 13:53, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * What the article says, a propos Magellan, is this: "This was a record Farthest South for a European navigator, though by no means the farthest southern penetration by man, since the position was north of the populated land of Tierra del Fuego, home of the world's most southerly human settlements." I don't think this specific acknowledgment justifies the phrase "barely mentioned". Brianboulton (talk) 17:48, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Three clauses out of four in a single sentence of the article. I think that does not count as a major mention. The native boats were flimsy, but they could have reached Cape Horn and the surrounding islands on a good day, maybe even Diego Ramírez at a stretch... although they would have been hard pushed to make a return journey.--MacRusgail (talk) 14:19, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You will need to provide hard, verifiable information on these presumed voyages. What are your reliable, published sources? "Could have reached" and "at a stretch" are not good enough on their own. Brianboulton (talk) 19:03, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Willem Schouten
Seems worth a mention as he was the first European to sail through the Drake Passage.--MacRusgail (talk) 13:55, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You are right: thank you for drawing attention to this point. Although Schouten is not credited with a Farthest South record he did name Cape Horn, and he was the first European to reach the Pacific via the Drake Passage. I have added a short section to this effect. Brianboulton (talk) 16:41, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Milhist?
At WT:MIL, an editor is asking if the Milhist tag on this article is appropriate. Skimming, I see: Sir Francis Drake's "principal objective was plunder, not exploration", James Clark Ross's expedition "was a full-scale Royal Naval enterprise", and "US Navy Commander (later Rear-Admiral) Richard E. Byrd and three others completed the first aircraft flight over the South Pole". And of course, the crews, ships and supplies didn't fall out of the sky; most of them would have had military connections. But OTOH, military history isn't the focus of this article, and I don't feel strongly one way or the other. Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 00:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know how widely MilHist spreads its net; does the mere fact that an expedition contained military personnel, even though there was no military objective, make it part of military history? If so, how far should this be taken? The British Everest Expedition of 1953 (which, strangely, has no WP article) was led by a serving army officer; does this bring it into the MilHist orbit? I feel fairly neutral about this, but my instinct is to say that the Farthest South article should not be included as Military History; it is a history of the convergence on the South Pole and as such has no military dimension. However, individual expeditions such as James Cook's or Ross's, might be considered as tangentially part of MilHist because by-products of these expeditions, in the spheres of surveying, meteorology, magnetism etc, may have had some military use. I'll go with any consensus that develops on the issue. Brianboulton (talk) 18:56, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That's my view in general, but OTOH, the tag was probably put there and has probably stayed there for a reason, so I don't want to revert in a hurry, I'd like to give this two weeks or so to find out if there's an important connection to military history (aside from the general points I mentioned). - Dank (push to talk) 19:22, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * My view, is (unsurprisingly) that this article has little to do with military history, but then I dislike boundary stretching at the best of times. [material about HMS Challenger moved to new section] Carcharoth (talk) 00:20, 17 December 2011 (UTC) Above post edited as noted. Carcharoth (talk) 20:42, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

If it helps, though I don't think long discussions over wikiproject tags are that helpful (ultimately it matters little, as it is the article content that is central), I looked up the history of the tags here, and found that of the four currently at the top (MILHIST, Antarctica, UK, Norway) two of them (and one other, Russia, subsequently removed) were added in this edit (March 2011). This is a good example of how wikiproject tagging can be a bit random. It might have been expected that the Antarctica wikiproject tag was the first to be added, but in fact the first version of this talk page has the MILHIST tag: 12 March 2008 (two days after the article was started). It wasn't tagged for WikiProject Antarctica until 21 August 2010, though that might have more to do with the history of that WikiProject (the WikiProject Antarctica template existed for years, but I'm not sure how widely used it was). The editor who created this talk page (and hence did the initial MILHIST tagging) recently edited for the first time in over a year, so someone could ask them but it might not be great timing. Carcharoth (talk) 00:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Problem on Shackleton's record
Text in article says: "(Shackelton) then marching on to reach their Farthest South point at 88°23'S, a mere 97 nautical miles (180 km; 112 mi) from the pole, on 9 January 1909".

This record is reported in other books: for instance, Sir Ranulph Finnies writes the same in his Scott in Antartica [2004 by Book Creation]

I really don't understand.

90° - 88°23' is 37' Every degree is made by 60 minutes and every minute is 1852 meters long

37 x 1852 = 68.524 meters

I think that there is a mistake: or in "88°23' S" or in 97 nautical miles

I think that there is a typographical error: "97" instead of "37" But I am non able to read the original Shacketon's information: can somebody do it?

Martino Martinosacchi (talk) 18:40, 17 December 2011 (UTC)


 * 90° - 88°23' = 1°37' = 97' = 97 nautical miles (1' of latitude = 1 nm by definition). Thus the article seems to be correct.  Apcbg (talk) 20:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

umh.... yes, you are right and I'm wrong. Sorry Martinosacchi (talk) 21:35, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

HMS Challenger
Noting here the changes I made to the text regarding the Challenger expedition. This followed up on what I said earlier: "Another example is the inclusion of the Challenger expedition in Template:Polar exploration, even though that expedition spent little more than a month (February 1874) in Antarctic waters during a four-year voyage that circled the globe and spent far more time in tropical waters. The mention of the Challenger expedition in this article is nice to see, and they did visit a fair number of sub-Antarctic islands, but the years for the Challenger expedition given in this article are: (a) wrong, as they departed England on 21 December 1872; and (b) misleading (if you say that a 4-year expedition 'explored Antarctic waters' you should at least say they only spent a month in Antarctic waters). The only times they were even in sub-Antarctic waters was: (i) from January to March 1874 when they went south-east from South Africa, east a bit at around 60 degrees South, and then north-east from the ice regions to Australia; and (ii) when they were sailing around the tip of South America two years later in January 1876." Hopefully what I've added has cleared that up. Carcharoth (talk) 20:42, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

MILHIST article?
I'm not sure on what basis this is a MILHIST article. Can anyone enlighten me? Thanks. Peacemaker67 (talk) 05:13, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I've rm tf MILHIST tag, as it doesn't seem relevant. Peacemaker67 (talk) 09:00, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 one external links on Farthest South. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150629181745/http://www.discoveryuk.com/web/discovering-antarctica/timeline/ to http://www.discoveryuk.com/web/discovering-antarctica/timeline/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080917033900/http://www.ucalgary.ca:80/applied_history/tutor/eurvoya/magellan.html to http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/eurvoya/magellan.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 00:52, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Farthest South. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/eurvoya/magellan.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110806113651/http://www.win.tue.nl/~engels/discovery/weddell.html to http://www.win.tue.nl/~engels/discovery/weddell.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080520110730/http://www.mundoandino.com/Chile/Diego-Ramirez-Islands to http://www.mundoandino.com/Chile/Diego-Ramirez-Islands

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 04:58, 20 May 2017 (UTC)