When it comes to daring tales of determination and survival against the odds, few names should come to the lips quicker than Ernest Shackleton.
Today brought the news that after over 100 years of it going missing in the Antarctic, Shackleton's ship has now been found.
Endurance had not been seen since it sank in the Weddell Sea in 1915.
Dr John Shears, the expedition leader, said: "The Endurance22 expedition has reached its goal. We have made polar history with the discovery of Endurance, and successfully completed the world's most challenging shipwreck search."
The remains of the ship are said to be in "a brilliant state of preservation".
So who was Shackleton and why is the Endurance expedition so famous?
Who was Ernest Shackleton?
Sir Ernest Shackleton was born in Kildare, Ireland in 1874 and became one of Britain's best-known explorers.
Shackleton became best known for an expedition that began in 1914 in which he attempted to be the first person to cross the Antarctic from coast to coast, via the South Pole.
The ship sank after it was caught and crushed in the Antarctic ice. Endurance had to be abandoned and the escape of his team earned him hero status.
He was the second child of ten children and moved to south London when he was ten and home-schooled until he was 11.
When attending school, he was bullied for his Irish accent and became known for getting into fights and behaving badly.
The adventurous Anglo-Irishman married Emily Dorman in 1904 and she was instrumental in him securing funds for his expeditions.
On January 9, 1909 an expedition of which he was part reached a point only 97 miles north of the South Pole.
Upon returning to his wife at home after this failed expedition, Shackleton is reported to have said: "I thought you would rather have a live donkey, than a dead lion."
The public did not consider him a donkey after this expedition and it allowed him to secure funds for his next attempt at the pole, a series of events still talked about to this day. It even became a film starring Kenneth Brannagh.
After the expedition, he served in the British army during the First World War. He died of a heart attack during another expedition to the South Pole in 1922.
How did Ernest Shackleton escape the Antarctic?
Endurance left South Georgia for the Antarctic ice in December 1914 with the aim of establishing a base on the sea coast.
By mid-January, Endurance became trapped in the ice and unable to move. Crew member Thomas Thomas Orde-Lees described this as like being "frozen like an almond in the middle of a chocolate bar".
The crew began camping out on the ice as the ship slowly became crushed, sinking on November 21, 1915.
To the crew's luck, the ice in which they were trapped drifted north to the point in which Elephant and Clarence islands came into view. The team set sail with limited supplies and lifeboats unfit for crossing stormy open oceans.
They reached the island six days after setting sail on April 9 1916, wracked with seasickness and dysentery.
Their ordeal did not end there - Shackleton and five others set sail again to seek help from South Georgia, an incredible 800 miles away.
They spent 16 days in the lifeboat, the James Caird, and Shackleton wrote: "The wind simply shrieked as it tore the tops off the waves.
"Down into valleys, up to tossing heights, straining until her seams opened, swung our little boat."
The high winds their boat faced meant they were pushed ashore in the wrong place and forced to to hike across mountains to reach the nearest town.
At one point, they chose to slide down a glacier rather than climb down, before reaching the town of Stromness after 36 hours of hiking.
The expedition to cross the Antarctic earned Shackleton a hero's welcome back home, despite the failing to reach the aims of the original mission.
A rescue mission was then sent to Elephant Island where the remaining 22 men were. Three of the crew had died but the rest were brought home.
