A Talk With The Polar Geographer Who Discovered Shackleton’s Endurance Under 10,000 ft of Frozen Water

History Unplugged Podcast

On August 1, 1914, British explorer Sir Ernest Shackelton and his crew sailed from England, set on making history as the first to cross Antarctica. Their ship never returned from her maiden voyage. On November 22, 1915, the aptly named Endurance disappeared, crushed by ice and swallowed by the Weddell Sea. Today, nearly everyone is familiar with Shackelton’s harrowing survival story and incredible rescue of all 27 crew members. Yet Endurance was thought lost forever, impossible to find because of her remote, frozen resting place—until March 5, 2022.

Today’s guest is John Shears, author of “Endurance: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Legendary Ship.” He takes us inside the Endurance22 mission to locate, film, and survey the wreck of Shackleton’s lost ship. We get a firsthand account of the search for Endurance and its discovery—upright and largely intact, at a depth of 9,869 feet underwater.

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