The history of Antarctica emerges from early Western theories of a vast continent, known as Terra Australis, believed to exist in the far south of the globe. The term Antarctic, referring to the opposite of the Arctic Circle, was coined by Marinus of Tyre in the 2nd century AD.

The rounding of the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn in the 15th and 16th centuries proved that Terra Australis Incognita ("Unknown Southern Land"), if it existed, was a continent in its own right. In 1773 James Cook and his crew crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time but although they discovered nearby islands, they did not catch sight of Antarctica itself. It is believed he was as close as 150 mi (241.4 km) from the mainland.

In 1819, a few of the 644 crew of the wrecked Spanish ship of the line San Telmo with 74 cannons might have been the first men to set foot on Antarctica before probably dying of hypothermia - but there is no proof that they did. A year later on the 27th of January, 1820 a Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev discovered an ice shelf at Princess Martha Coast that later became known as the Fimbul Ice Shelf. Bellingshausen and Lazarev became the first explorers to see and officially discover the land of Antarctica continent. Three days later, on 30 January 1820, a British expedition captained by Edward Bransfield sighted Trinity Peninsula, and ten months later an American sealer Nathaniel Palmer sighted Antarctica on 17 November 1820. The first landing was probably just over a year later when American Captain John Davis, a sealer, set foot on the ice.

Several expeditions attempted to reach the South Pole in the early 20th century, during the 'Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration'. Many resulted in injury and death. Norwegian Roald Amundsen finally reached the Pole on 13 December 1911, following a dramatic race with the Englishman Robert Falcon Scott.