On this day in 1845, Sir John Franklin set out with his team of 129 aboard two ships, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, to explore the Arctic. The plan was to traverse the last un-navigated region of the Northern Passage. Sadly, the mission ended in failure with the two ships becoming icebound early on into the journey. Soon afterwards, the entire crew was lost. While a rescue mission was attempted in 1848, it wasn’t until over 150 years that the wreckage of Franklin and his crew was found. The Erebus was located west of O’Reilly Island in 2014 by a Canadian research team and the Terror was discovered in 2016 near King Williams Island by the Arctic Research Foundation.
