First Recorded Landing on Antarctica

No definitive "first person" exists—indigenous southern peoples may have reached Antarctic waters via ice bridges millennia ago. But the first documented landing was:

John Davis (American sealer)

Date: February 7, 1821
Location: Hughes Bay, Palmer Archipelago, Antarctic Peninsula

Context

• Davis logged it in the ship Cecilia's records
• Earlier sightings: Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen (Russian, Jan 1820), Edward Bransfield (British, Jan 1820), Nathaniel Palmer (American, Nov 1820)
• First confirmed mainland landing disputed: possibly 1895 (Norwegian Henryk Bull's party) or 1899 (Borchgrevink)

Antarctica's "discovery" was a process, not a moment.