The Shackleton–Rowett Expedition was the last Antarctic expedition led
by Sir Ernest Shackleton, and the final episode in the Heroic Age of
Antarctic Exploration. The venture, lasting from 1921 to 1922, financed
by businessman John Quiller Rowett, is
sometimes referred to as the Quest Expedition after its ship, a small
converted Norwegian whaler. Before the expedition's work could properly
begin, Shackleton died aboard ship, just after its arrival at the
sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. The major part of the subsequent
foreshortened expedition was a three-month cruise to the eastern
Antarctic, under the leadership of second-in-command Frank Wild. In
these waters the shortcomings of Quest were soon in evidence: slow
speed, heavy fuel consumption, a tendency to roll in heavy seas, and a
steady leak. The ship was unable to proceed further than longitude
20°E, well short of its easterly target, and its engine's low power was
insufficient for it to penetrate far into the Antarctic ice. Following
several fruitless attempts to break southwards through the pack ice,
Wild returned the ship to South Georgia, after a nostalgic visit to
Elephant Island, where he and 21 others had been stranded during
Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition six years earlier.
Although not greatly regarded in the histories of polar exploration,
the Quest voyage is of historical significance, standing at the very
end of the Heroic Age and the beginning of the "Mechanical Age" that
followed it.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shackleton%E2%80%93Rowett_Expedition>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
529:
Byzantine Emperor Justinian I issued the first draft of the Corpus
Juris Civilis, a first attempt to codify Roman law.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Juris_Civilis>
1348:
King Charles of Bohemia issued a Golden Bull to establish Charles
University in Prague, the first university in Central Europe.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_University_in_Prague>
1805:
German composer Ludwig van Beethoven premiered his Third Symphony,
sometimes cited as marking the beginning of musical Romanticism and the
end of the Classical Era, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._3_%28Beethoven%29>
1868:
D'Arcy McGee, a Canadian Father Of Confederation, was assassinated – to
date, the only Canadian political assassination at the federal level.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Arcy_McGee>
1954:
Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced the domino
theory, speculating that if one nation in a region came under the
influence of communism, then its surrounding countries would follow in
a domino effect.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/domino_theory>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
integument (n):
1. (biology) An outer protective covering such as the feathers or skin
of an animal, a rind or shell.
2. (botany) The outer tissue layer of an ovule, which develops into
the seed coat
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/integument>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
I always work on the theory that the audience will believe you best if
you believe yourself.
--Charlton Heston
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charlton_Heston>