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1912: The Year the World Discovered Antartica
- Narrated by: James Millar
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
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Publisher's summary
1912 was an incredible year, marking the height of the Heroic Age of Exploration. Curiosity about Antarctica was at fever pitch, and between 1910 and 1914 five teams of intrepid explorers embarked on the greatest race of the era, to travel beyond the edges of the known world and conquer this last great frontier.
Pitted against one another were Captain Robert Falcon Scott for Britain, Roald Amundsen for Norway, Sir Douglas Mawson for Australasia, Wilhelm Filchner for Germany, and Nobu Shirase for Japan. "Conquest of the South Pole!" trumpeted the world's newspapers in March 1912. Amundsen had won. But behind all the headlines, there was a much bigger story. The exploits of these larger-than-life explorers, often narrated in their own words, thrilled and enthralled the world; the limits of our planet were pushed all the way to the South Pole and the door to Antarctica flung wide open.
Drawing on his own polar experiences, Chris Turney reveals why 1912 witnessed the dawn of a new age in our understanding of the natural world. The tales of endurance, self-sacrifice, and technological innovation that marked 1912 laid the foundation for modern scientific exploration and have continued to inspire future generations.
1912 is an awe-inspiring journey - part nail-biting adventure, part scientific history - through an ancient and fascinating land.
Includes a PDF of photographs from these Antarctic expeditions.
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- By Leon Miller on 12-01-15
By: Stephen R. Bown
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Erebus
- One Ship, Two Epic Voyages, and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time
- By: Michael Palin
- Narrated by: Michael Palin
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Michael Palin brings the fascinating story of the Erebus and its occupants to life, from its construction as a bomb vessel in 1826 through the flagship years of James Clark Ross’s Antarctic expedition and finally to Sir John Franklin’s quest for the holy grail of navigation - a route through the Northwest Passage, where the ship disappeared into the depths of the sea for more than 150 years. It was rediscovered under the arctic waters in 2014.
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Engrossing story
- By Anonymous User on 10-01-24
By: Michael Palin
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Labyrinth of Ice
- The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition
- By: Buddy Levy
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In July 1881, Lt. A. W. Greely and his crew of 24 scientists and explorers were bound for the last region unmarked on global maps. Their goal: Farthest North. What would follow was one of the most extraordinary and terrible voyages ever made. Greely and his men confronted every possible challenge - vicious wolves, sub-zero temperatures, and months of total darkness - as they set about exploring one of the most remote, unrelenting environments on the planet. In May 1882, they broke the 300-year-old record, and returned to camp to eagerly await the resupply ship. Only nothing came.
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An incredible read
- By Lauren Olson on 12-06-19
By: Buddy Levy
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The Man Who Ate His Boots
- The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage
- By: Anthony Brandt
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The enthralling and often harrowing history of the adventurers who searched for the Northwest Passage, the holy grail of 19th-century British exploration. After the triumphant end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the British took it upon themselves to complete something they had been trying to do since the 16th century: Find the fabled Northwest Passage, a shortcut to the Orient via a sea route over Northern Canada. For the next 35 years the British Admiralty sent out expedition after expedition to probe the ice-bound waters of the Canadian Arctic in search of a route.
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They don't get any better than this
- By Christopher on 08-15-14
By: Anthony Brandt
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N-4 Down
- The Hunt for the Arctic Airship Italia
- By: Mark Piesing
- Narrated by: Matt Jamie
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Triumphantly returning from the North Pole on May 24, 1928, the world-famous exploring airship Italia — code-named N-4 — was struck by a terrible storm and crashed somewhere over the Arctic ice, triggering the largest polar rescue mission in history. Helping lead the search was Roald Amundsen, the poles’ greatest explorer, who himself soon went missing in the frozen wastes. Amundsen’s body has never been found, the last victim of one of the Arctic’s most enduring mysteries....
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Interesting and entertaining
- By 2451 on 09-01-21
By: Mark Piesing
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The Worst Journey in the World
- By: Apsley Cherry-Garrard
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 20 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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This gripping story of courage and achievement is the account of Robert Falcon Scott's last fateful expedition to the Antarctic, as told by surviving expedition member Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Cherry-Garrard, whom Scott lauded as a tough, efficient member of the team, tells of the journey from England to South Africa and southward to the ice floes. From there began the unforgettable polar journey across a forbidding and inhospitable region.
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What a story!
- By A. Massey on 05-25-04
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The Lost Men
- The Horrowing Saga of Shackleton's Ross Sea Party
- By: Kelly Tyler-Lewis
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
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In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton sailed south aboard the Endurance to be the first to cross Antarctica. Shackleton's endeavor is legend, but few know the astonishing story of the Ross Sea party, the support crew he dispatched to the opposite side of the continent to build a vital lifeline of food and fuel depots.
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Just OK
- By Michael on 05-17-07
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Conquering the Pacific
- An Unknown Mariner and the Final Great Voyage of the Age of Discovery
- By: Andrés Reséndez
- Narrated by: Phil Morris
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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It began with a secret mission, no expenses spared. Spain, plotting to break Portugal’s monopoly trade with the fabled Orient, set sail from a hidden Mexican port to cross the Pacific - and then, critically, to attempt the never-before-accomplished return, the vuelta. Four ships set out from Navidad, each one carrying a dream team of navigators. The smallest ship, guided by seaman Lope Martín, a mulatto who had risen through the ranks to become one of the most qualified pilots of the era, soon pulled far ahead and became mysteriously lost from the fleet.
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Must Read, Excellent
- By Amazon Customer on 10-07-22
By: Andrés Reséndez
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Island of the Blue Foxes
- Disaster and Triumph on the World's Greatest Scientific Expedition
- By: Stephen R. Bown
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of the world's largest, longest, and best-financed scientific expedition of all time, triumphantly successful, gruesomely tragic, and never before fully told. The immense 18th-century scientific journey, variously known as the Second Kamchatka Expedition or the Great Northern Expedition, from St. Petersburg across Siberia to the coast of North America, involved over 3,000 people and cost Peter the Great over one-sixth of his empire's annual revenue.
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Vivid History of Russia's First Contact In Alaska
- By Neil Ring on 09-01-18
By: Stephen R. Bown
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Atlantic
- Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Atlantic is a biography of a tremendous space that has been central to the ambitions of explorers, scientists, and warriors, and continues profoundly to affect our character, attitudes, and dreams. Spanning the ocean's story, from its geological origins to the age of exploration, from World War II battles to today's struggles with pollution and overfishing, Winchester's narrative is epic, intimate, and awe inspiring.
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Starts Better Than it Finishes
- By Ray on 12-18-10
By: Simon Winchester
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Icebound
- Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World
- By: Andrea Pitzer
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In the best-selling tradition of Hampton Sides’ In the Kingdom of Ice, a “gripping adventure tale” (The Boston Globe) recounting Dutch polar explorer William Barents’ three harrowing Arctic expeditions - the last of which resulted in a relentlessly challenging year-long fight for survival.
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Great book - missing maps :(
- By Stephen on 01-20-21
By: Andrea Pitzer
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Fatal North
- Murder and Survival on the First North Pole Expedition
- By: Bruce Henderson
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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It began as President Ulysses S. Grant's bid for international glory after the Civil War - America's first attempt to reach the North Pole. It ended with Captain Charles Hall's death under suspicious circumstances, dissension among sailors, scientists, and explorers, and the ship's evacuation and eventual sinking. Then came a brutal struggle for survival by 33 men, women, and children stranded on the polar ice.
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An average reader says 10
- By Barbara on 11-10-16
By: Bruce Henderson
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Chasing Venus
- The Race to Measure the Heavens
- By: Andrea Wulf
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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On June 6, 1761, the world paused to observe a momentous occasion: the first transit of Venus between the earth and the sun in more than a century. Through that observation, astronomers could calculate the size of the solar system - but only if they could compile data from many different points of the globe, all recorded during the short period of the transit. Fortunately, transits of Venus occur in pairs: eight years later, the scientists would have another opportunity to succeed.
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Fascinating history, beautifully told
- By GC1 on 04-26-16
By: Andrea Wulf
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Frozen in Time
- The Fate of the Franklin Expedition
- By: Owen Beattie, John Geiger
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1845, Sir John Franklin and his men set out to "penetrate the icy fastness of the north, and to circumnavigate America." And then they disappeared. The truth about what happened to Franklin's ill-fated Arctic expedition was shrouded in mystery for more than a century. Then, in 1984, Owen Beattie and his team exhumed two crew members from a burial site in the North for forensic evidence, to shocking results. But the most startling discovery didn't come until 2014, when a team commissioned by the Canadian government uncovered one of the lost ships: Erebus.
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frozen in time
- By S.A. Rohr on 09-18-22
By: Owen Beattie, and others