The search for the source of the Nile, the world's longest river, inspired heroic explorations into the African interior by the British in the 19th century.
The archaeological wonders of today don't come from heroic subterranean exploration, still less from the efforts of teenagers with their spades and trowels in damp Shropshire fields.
The Athy Heritage Centre-Museum, Athy, County Kildare, Ireland established in 2001 the Ernest Shackleton Autumn School, which is held annually, to honour the memory of Ernest Shackleton and to commemorate the era of heroic polar exploration.
Back in the heroic age of exploration and over the centuries before, seamen on long voyages had been plagued by scurvy, resulting from vitamin C deficiency.
But the heroic age of exploration lasted no more than 500 years: after the so-called conquest of the poles there was not much terra incognita left to conquer.
It is a tragedy; I consider dogs to have been a major factor in the well-being of isolated communities in the heroic days of exploration, keeping men occupied and balanced, with puppies running freely around camps, distracting, entertaining and providing company on such expeditions.
"The Heroic Age of Exploration is being looked at much closer now, and it's Shackleton and his team who are getting the attention even though they never reached the South Pole".
The east to west crossing of what is the world's largest island was also made famous by Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen whose expedition in 1888 sparked the heroic age of polar exploration but took 49 days to complete.
Shackleton's death marked the end of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, a period of discovery characterised by journeys of geographical and scientific exploration in a largely unknown continent without any of the benefits of modern travel methods or radio communication.
