South! The story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition (1914–1917) is still considered one of the single most dramatic, thrilling and exhausting adventures during the so-called Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
In “South!”, Shackleton tells the whole story in his own words.
The goal of the expedition was to perform the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. But when Shackleton’s ship, The Endurance, became locked in ice – and subsequently were crushed and sunk – the goal of the expedition became sheer survival. During the two years of the expedition, the desperate and heroic acts of Shackleton and his crew made history, and rightly so.
In this book the story is told of adventures and discoveries in astronomy from the star-gazing astrologers of Babylon and China to the astrophysicists of today. Until about 1500 A.D. the Greeks were foremost in the field of cosmic speculation. Then came Copernicus, who set out to correct Ptolemy’s erring calendar; next Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer, who perfected new instruments and mapped the skies with new refinements; then the
Jesuit astronomer-missionaries to China, and Bruno, the philosopher-astrologer; then Kepler, a neurotic who plotted the orbits of the planets with astonishing accuracy, but still believed in astrology; and then Galileo, whose revolutionary theories involved him in troubles,, with the Church. Later still came Newton and the revolution of modern astrophysics. Download the free PDF e-book here:
Free Public Domain PDF e-books about adventurers, explorers, sailors and mountaineers from all over the world – and exciting novels of adventure. Be inspired and learn how the world was discovered.
