Why 11 Babies Have Been Born in Antarctica.
Some ideas are pretty stupid. Like car surfing on a 2014 Nissan 350. Or pencil diving into a frozen river. Or forcing 11 couples to have children in Antarctica.
Yeah, you weren’t expecting that last one (unless you happened to look at the title). At the end of the day, it all boils down to two crazy tyrannical leaders, twenty-two people, eleven babies, two countries and one power struggle for a portion of Antarctica.
Ok. Its the 20th century. Lots of world wars. Lots of wannabe Hitlers. Lots of Antarctic babies. At this point, basically all unoccupied land is finders keepers. So…countries just started claiming bits and pieces of Antarctica. Sort of like if Frankenstein was real, and all the dead people woke up from the grave and wanted their body parts back.
Weird analogies aside, the two countries fighting over land were Chile and Argentina. It was sort of like the space race between America and Russia. Except… way less conspiracies, and a whole lot weirder.
So you’re wondering. What’s so special about this specific portion of Antarctica? It's just that portion of land was closest to civilization. And by civilization, I mean Chile (yellow) and Argentina (blue).
So… Argentina sent a woman (the wife of a military captain) to Antarctica when she was 7 months pregnant. And two months later she gave birth to Emilio Marcos Palma, on January 7th, 1978. Basically, Argentina thought that if they had natural Antarctic nationals on Antarctica first, then that would sort of give them first dibs on that land. And I guess Chile agreed with them since a year later, a Chilean couple was sent to Antarctica, where they not only birthed but conceived a child. Yep, double whammy. So, on November 21, 1984 Juan Pablo Camacho Martino was born- the first Chilean born on Antarctic soil…but actually ice.
And, since the child had been born and conceived there, Chile thought they had an even stronger claim on Antarctica.
And then Argentina had a baby. And then Chile had a baby. And then Argentina had a baby. And then Chile had a baby. All the way up to 11 babies. Sort of like a game of Truth or Dare, with no truths and all the dares being to have babies in Antarctica.
Surprisingly, every single member of the very exclusive Antarctic baby club survived. And you’re probably wondering, who owns Antarctica now. Well, if you ask Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom, they do. If you ask the rest of the world, nobody does.
So now, if anyone happens to ask you why 11 babies have been born in Antarctica, you won’t look as clueless as everyone else.
