Jules Dumont d'Urville
Naval Officer and Explorer · 1790–1842
Who is Jules Dumont d'Urville?
Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville was a French Navy officer, linguist, and botanist born in Condé-sur-Noireau, Normandy. Early in his career he helped identify the ancient statue now known as the Venus de Milo and pressed for its acquisition by France in 1820. He went on to command three major exploratory voyages through the Pacific and southern oceans aboard the corvette Astrolabe, and later the Astrolabe together with the Zélée. On 21 January 1840, during his third and final voyage, his expedition became among the first to sight and land on the Antarctic mainland, at a stretch of coast he named Terre Adélie (Adélie Land) in tribute to his wife, Adèle, who had endured three long separations during his voyages; the newly recorded penguin species there was likewise later named Adélie in her honor. Dumont d'Urville died in one of France's first major railway disasters, a train crash near Versailles in 1842. Adélie Land remains the Antarctic sector administered today as part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.
Sources: Jules Dumont d'Urville, Voyage au Pôle Sud et dans l'Océanie sur les corvettes l'Astrolabe et la Zélée, exécuté par ordre du Roi pendant les années 1837-1838-1839-1840 (Paris, Gide, 1841-1846) · Musée national de la Marine, "Jules Dumont d'Urville, l'appel de la découverte" · AMAEPF, "Découverte de la Terre Adélie par Dumont d'Urville"
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