Important events In Antartica

  • Shackleton offers his ship and crew to British government for war effort

  • After Shackleton receives one-word telegram from Admiralty ("Proceed"), Endurance departs Plymouth

  • With final crew on board, Endurance leaves Buenos Aires, Argentina for South Georgia

  • Departs Grytviken whaling station, South Georgia - last time crew would touch land for 497 days

  • Enters the Antarctic pack ice

  • Endurance crosses Antarctic Circle

  • First sighting of Antarctic continent (Coats Land)

  • Endurance becomes stuck in the pack ice

  • Drifts to 77th parallel in Vahsel Bay, farthest south the ship will reach

  • Shackleton orders halt to ship routine

  • Sun vanishes for season, not to reappear for four months

  • Crew celebrates Midwinter's Day with a feast

  • Frank Hurley takes famous nighttime photos of Endurance

  • Pressure ice makes the Endurance, according to Perce Blackborow, "literally [jump] into the air and [settle] on its beam."

  • At 5 p.m., Shackleton gives order to abandon the Endurance

  • After futile, three-day attempt to march over the ice, Shackleton has crew erect Ocean Camp

  • With a cry of "She's going, boys!" Shackleton and his crew watch Endurance sink

  • Crew again begins march toward open water, averaging just a mile and a half a day

  • Shackleton abandons march, sets up Patience Camp

  • Expedition Ended

  • Blizzard blows the camp north across Antarctic Circle

  • In honor of Leap Year Day, crew enjoys three full meals

  • On Shackleton's orders, the crew shoots the remaining dogs (originally numbering 69) and eats the younger ones

  • The ice floe they are on splits in two, separating them from the three lifeboats, but they get them back

  • Elephant Island appears on the horizon

  • Crew goes to sea in the three lifeboats, the James Caird, the Dudley Docker, and the Stancomb Wills

  • After seven grueling days at sea, lifeboats land safely on Elephant Island

  • Shackleton moves camp seven miles to the west, to a spot that comes to be known as Cape Wild—after Frank Wild, who found it

  • Shackleton announces that he will attempt to sail the 22-and-a-half-foot James Caird 800 miles to South Georgia

  • Shackleton departed with 5 others to South Georgia in James Caird

  • After 17 days in stormy seas, and with superior navigation by Frank Worsley, the James Caird miraculously arrives on the west coast of South Georgia

  • Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean set off to cross South Georgia's glacier-clad peaks to east-coast whaling stations

  • Having trekked without a break for 36 hours over glacier-clad mountains thousands of feet high, Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean arrive at Stromness whaling station

  • Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean depart on the English-owned Southern Sky to rescue men on Elephant Island, but are stopped by ice 100 miles short of the island