Born: 15 February 1874 Ireland

Died: 5 January 1922 aged 47

Nationality: Irish

Occupation: explorer

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an Irish explorer who was one of the main adventures of Antarctic Exploration. His first experience of Antarctica was as third officer on Captain Scott’s Discovery Expedition in 1901–04, from which he was sent home early because of health issues. He was determined to make up for his personal failure, he returned to Antarctica in 1907 as leader of the Nimrod Expedition. In January 1909 he and three other companions made a southern march which they made a record distance of South latitude at 88°23′S, 97 miles or 190 km from the South Pole, this was the closest anyone had got in exploration history up to that time. For his great achievement, Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII when he returned home. Then in 1992 Amundsen reached the South Pole.

As you can see throughout his expedition his main aim was to be the first to get to the South Pole and although in 1909 they got the furthest anyone had ever made. In the end he was beaten to the pole. Once he had lost the race to the pole Shackleton only had one more objective in the Antarctica region, this was to cross the continent sea to sea going past the pole.

Shackleton was effected by Antarctica, by all his failures every mission or trip he planned never turned out very successful or accomplished what he set out to do. It wasn’t just his explorations that he hadn’t accomplished, but also his general life was unfulfilled and he owed huge amounts of money to business venture and other money making schemes. Even though Shackleton had a lot of failures he was a great role model and he never gave up, he was always determined to stay strong and keep his team alive even in the most dangerous situations.