Unlike other continental land masses, Antarctica's existence was postulated long before it was discovered. Indeed, both Pythagoras and Aristotle felt that the globe would be top-heavy and topple over if there weren't a sizeable land mass to balance it.

James Cook became the first person to cross the Antarctic Circle in 1773, but he circumnavigated Antarctica without once sighting land. Cook's observations on the huge seal and whale populations encouraged sealers and whalers to arrive in droves: nearly one third of the Southern Ocean and subantarctic islands were subsequently discovered by sealers.

In January 1820 Russian Fabian von Bellingshausen became the first person to see the Antarctic continent. He described it as 'an icefield covered with small hillocks'. It wasn't until 120 years later that his achievements were properly appreciated - the Soviet Union was then keen to establish Antarctic claims.

In 1819 and 1822, Scotsman James Weddell discovered the South Orkney Islands; in 1823 he landed on Saddle Island where he took six skins of an unknown species of seal (today known as the Weddell seal). By February he had reached 74°15' south, a new southing record. He named the sea after sovereign King George IV, but this century it was renamed the Weddell Sea.

Frenchman Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont d'Urville set forth from Toulon in 1838 hoping to reach the South Magnetic Pole (magnetism was then one of science's biggest conundrums), but ice stopped him well short. He did, however, discover Louis Philippe Land and Joinville Island at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, although sealers had probably already landed on both. In January 1840 he finally sighted land. Sheer ice cliffs prevented a landing on the mainland, so d'Urville landed on an island a few hundred metres offshore and claimed the Great Southern Land for France.

Belgian navy lieutenant Adrien Victor Joseph de Gerlache de Gomery's expeditions left Punta Arenas, Chile, very late in the season in December 1897. Some speculate that de Gerlache knew this would mean the

Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink headed the first venture to establish firm bases on the continent. In 1899 this expedition left two simple huts, 10 men, 90 sledge dogs, kayaks for sea travel and a new Swedish invention - the Primus stove - in Antarctica. Despite one death, some near disasters and an ambivalent reaction on returning to London, this exercise was the start of modern Antarctic research.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott's well-financed expedition in the

With spring came the real work: Scott and two others, with 19 dogs and five supply sledges, took off for the South Pole. None had skied or driven sledge dogs before and their inexperience was telling. Despite this, they reached 82° 16.5' south before they turned back, but the return trip was awful. As the dogs weakened they were shot and fed to the others. They made it back to the

Norwegian Roald Gravning Amundsen, who had been part of the de Gerlache expedition that wintered in Antarctica, set sail from Christiana (modern-day Oslo) in 1910 in a bid to be the first man to reach the North Pole. When he heard American Robert Peary had already reached the North Pole, Amundsen did a literal about-face. Aware of Robert Scott's rival expedition, Amundsen secretively headed south. Setting out from his Ross Ice Shelf base on 19 October, 1911, Amundsen and four others headed for the Pole. The planning was meticulous: Amundsen took three or four backups for every critical item and set up 10 well-marked depots down to 82° south. On 14 December, 1911, Amundsen and his party reached the South Pole, claiming it for Norway. Amundsen left a tent at the Pole with a note inside for Scott to read.

Meanwhile, Scott was preparing another sortie and was desperate to beat Amundsen to the South Pole. He sailed from New Zealand in November 1910, and a team of five made a final push to the Pole on 2 October the next year. The journey was impossibly difficult, and they reached the Pole only to find that Amunsden had been there 23 days earlier. Scott's disappointment was enormous, and the party turned around to begin the return journey. Two men died within two months, and the surviving three pushed on for another month until, just 18km (11mi) from base, the weather pinned them down. Scott's last journal entry was 29 March and their frozen bodies were found eight months later by a search party.

After WWII only governments could afford to mount Antarctic expeditions, and in 1943 the British began the permanent occupation of the continent. In 1946, the US Navy Antarctic Developments Project, or 'Operation Highjump', was launched. It was the beginning of the Cold War and the exercise was designed to give US troops experience in polar conditions - 4700 men, 33 aircraft, 13 ships and 10 caterpillar tractors were deployed, and helicopters and icebreakers were used for the first time in Antarctica. In February 1954, the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) established Mawson station. This was the first permanent scientific station and the only one outside the Peninsula.

The International Geophysical Year (IGY), which lasted from July 1957 to December 1958, brought together the research activities of 66 countries. As part of this, 12 countries - Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the UK, the USA and the USSR - established more than 40 bases on the Antarctic continent and a further 20 on the subantarctic islands. It was the spirit of international cooperation promoted by the IGY that lead directly to the signing of the Antarctic Treaty, which has administered Antarctic affairs since 1961.

The isolation of permanent station staff is long and profound. According to recent studies, returning expeditioners who've spent a year or more on the continent display characteristics similar to returning prisoners of war. As the last resupply vessel pulls away the wintering expeditioners, faced with 8 or 9 months' isolation with their comrades, can feel a mixture of dread and elation, but being cut off from the rest of the world is part of what's attractive for these hardy types.

Typically, station staff will be made up of a team leader, a doctor, chef, a handful of meteorological observers, a seismologist, upper-atmosphere physicist, a few diesel mechanics, a carpenter, plumber and an electrician. Over the years there have been a number of incidents that illustrate just how difficult it can be to be trapped on the ice with 15 or so imperfect human beings winter long: recently on Casey, the 'tradies' (tradespeople) mutinied, got wildly drunk on home-brew and terrorised the other station staff. The ringleaders were sent home prematurely. During Mawson's 1911-13 expedition, a radio operator had a breakdown and dispatched bogus wireless messages. On Wilkes, years later, a diesel mechanic suffered a breakdown and began wielding a knife - he was confined to a makeshift padded cell for 5 months until he could be taken away aboard spring's first ship. A doctor on an Argentine expedition burnt down the base to force his evacuation, a Soviet scientist once killed a colleague with an axe over a game of chess and FBI agents were sent to the US McMurdo Sound base after two cooks were attacked with a hammer.

Bases often exhibit a distinct national character and typically have video rooms, billiard tables, libraries and bars. Concert evenings are common. Expeditioners have a penchant for clubs: the 300 Club, at the US Amundsen-Scott South Pole base, requires initiates to step naked into a sauna, heated to 200° Fahrenheit (93° Celsius), and then immediately step outside to run around the pole that marks the South Pole (there is one) at -100deg; Fahrenheit (-73° Celsius). The Vanda Swimming Club, at the New Zealand summer base, is made up of those who've broken through the ice of Lake Vanda, bared all and taken the plunge. They probably have a chess club too.

There are no indigenous peoples of Antarctica, but that doesn't mean that visitors shouldn't be respectful of fragile societies that do exist there. Antarctic bases are places of work and researchers need to take time out of their work to accommodate tourists. There's a desire amongst the Antarctic communities to be hospitable to visitors, but they are often pressed for time to complete their work before the season ends. Never enter any building unless you're specifically invited - you may interfere with scientific work or invade someone's privacy, a precious thing in a crowded base. Always take your shoes or boots off when you enter a station building - 90 tourists trudging mud into a base can take a long time to clean up. Never ask to use the toilet in a base: it's environmentally unsound to leave your waste on Antarctica when the facilities on your ship are available, and the onerous task of emptying or cleaning the toilet on the base is made all the worse when a bunch of unthinking tourists fill it to the brim. Perform your ablutions before you leave the ship.