The wreck of the HMS Endurance, polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton‘s ship, has been found off the coast of Antarctica. Captions in this video from The Independent explain that the ship was serendipitously found on March 5th, 2022, 100 years to the day of Shackleton’s burial.

“The whereabouts of the wooden ship, which was submerged in the Weddell Sea after it became trapped in ice in 1915, had remained a mystery for decades. However, an expedition team has now been able to locate it at a depth of 3,008 metres and approximately four miles south of the position originally recorded by the ship’s captain Frank Worsley, The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust said.”

Background on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914–1917) from The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust:

“It was Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ambition to achieve the first land crossing of Antarctica from the Weddell Sea via the South Pole to the Ross Sea. The Ross Sea Party which was landed at Hut Point on Ross Island had the task of laying supply dumps for Shackleton’s crossing party, and achieved its objective, but at the cost of three lives lost. In the Weddell Sea, Endurance never reached land and became trapped in the dense pack ice and the 28 men on board eventually had no choice but to abandon ship. After months spent in makeshift camps on the ice floes drifting northwards, the party took to the lifeboats to reach the inhospitable, uninhabited, Elephant Island. Shackleton and five others then made an extraordinary 800-mile (1,300 km) open-boat journey in the lifeboat, James Caird, to reach South Georgia. Shackleton and two others then crossed the mountainous island to the whaling station at Stromness. From there, Shackleton was eventually able to mount a rescue of the men waiting on Elephant Island and bring them home without loss of life.”