POLAR REGIONS

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c.2500 bce Dorset Culture develops in Alaska.
c.500 ce St Brendan sails to Iceland.
860 The Vikings reach Iceland.
986 Erik the Red lands on Greenland with settlers.
c.1400 English merchants trade with Iceland.
1553 Muscovy Company sends three ships to find the Northeast Passage.
1607 Henry Hudson leaves on his first Arctic voyage.
1725 Vitus Bering starts on his first trans-Russia expedition.
1740 Bering’s second expedition.
1819 John Franklin leads his first Arctic expedition.
1831 James Clark Ross discovers the North Magnetic Pole.
1847 Franklin dies searching for the Northwest Passage.
1895 Fridtjof Nansen sledges to 86°N during Fram voyage.
1908 Cook claims to have reached the North Pole.
1909 Peary claims to have reached the North Pole.
1920 Spitzbergen Treaty is signed.
1926 Byrd claims to have flown over the North Pole.
1948 Soviet airplane lands on sea ice at the North Pole.
c.1950 Arctic countries claim slices of the Arctic Ocean.
1959 US nuclear-powered submarine surfaces at the North Pole.
1969 Wally Herbert makes first crossing of the Arctic Ocean.
1971 Alaskan Inuit Land Claims settlement.
1977 The Alaska Pipeline, shipping oil south to ports, begins operation.
1979 Greenland is granted home rule by Denmark.
1989 The Exxon Valdez oil tanker grounds off the coast of Alaska, creating one of the worst oil spills
ever in the region.
1990 International Arctic Science Committee is formed.
1999 Successful Canadian Inuit land claim results in Nunavet Territory.
2007 Arctic icepack has shrunk so much that ships without icebreakers can now traverse the entire
Northwest Passage.
2013 British explorer Felicity Ashton is the first woman to ski alone across the continent of Antarctica.
It takes her 59 days.
2013 Russia arrests (and detains for months) 30 Greenpeace activitists protesting near Arctic oil
drilling sites.
2014 An international effort to create marine reserves around Antarctica fails, blocked by Russian and
Chinese interests.
2014 A Russian ship with scientists and tourists becomes blocked in sea ice in Antarctica and must be
rescued by U.S. Coast Guard vessel and Chinese helicopter.
2014 Scientists announced that annual ice loss from Greenland has doubled in rate since 2009.
2014 NASA announces that one of the largest ice sheets in Antarctica will disappear by 2020.
2015 The New York Times reports that China now has the fastest-growing operations in the Antarctic.
2015 While visiting Alaska to discuss climate change, President Obama becomes the first sitting president
to travel north of the Arctic Circle.
Polar Regions Timeline