Emily Chan
In 1915, a man named Ernest Shackleton set sail on the Endurance vessel with his crew to Antarctica, becoming the first team to undergo such an expedition.
However, the ship sank during their trip. The remains of the wreckage were not discovered until almost a century later.
As the world prepared for war in 1914, Shackleton set out for Antarctica. The plan was for him to take about 56 men divided among two ships to Weddell Bay in Antarctica. Then, they would finish their journey at the Ross Sea.
On August 8, 1914, the Endurance departed from Plymouth, England, and headed to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Afterward, they made their way to the South Georgia Island. On December 5, the crew began their voyage to Antarctica. From the start, it was anything but smooth sailing.
The Endurance was a wooden ship built to survive frigid temperatures, but the Weddell Sea proved to be a challenge.
It contained choppy waters and large chunks of ice, forcing the vessel to pause in its tracks and change course multiple times.
In January 1915, the Endurance became lodged in the ice. The crew did their best to hack away at the ice, but their efforts were unsuccessful–the ship was trapped. Shackleton held out hope that the sheets of ice would lead them to their destination.
However, the ice sheets started moving North, causing Shackleton and his men to spend the next few months aboard the ship, imprisoned among the ice. As the months passed, the ice sheets grew thicker the further North they headed.
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