Jean-Baptiste Charcot
Jean-Baptiste-Étienne-Auguste Charcot, born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, was a French scientist, medical doctor and polar scientist. His father was the neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot.Life
Jean-Baptiste Charcot was appointed leader of the French Antarctic Expedition with the ship Français exploring the west coast of Graham Land from 1904 until 1907. The expedition reached Adelaide Island in 1905 and took pictures of the Palmer Archipelago and Loubet Coast. From 1908 until 1910, another expedition followed with the ship Pourquoi-Pas, exploring the Bellingshausen Sea and the Amundsen Sea and discovering Loubet Land, Marguerite Bay and Charcot Island, which was named after his father, Jean-Martin Charcot. He named Hugo Island after Victor Hugo, the grandfather of his wife, Jeanne Hugo.
Later on, Jean-Baptiste Charcot explored Rockall in 1921 and Eastern Greenland and Svalbard from 1925 until 1936. He died when Pourquoi-Pas? was wrecked in a storm off the coast of Iceland in 1936. A monument to Charcot was created in Reykjavík, Iceland by sculptor Einar Jónsson in 1936 and another by Ríkarður Jónsson in 1952.
Charcot participated in many sports. He won two silver medals in sailing at the Summer Olympics of 1900.
