Emilio Palma

Emilio Marcos Palma (born January 7, 1978) was the first known person to be born on the continent of Antarctica; farther south than any other human. Emilio weighed 7½ pounds (3.4 kg) when born in Fortín Sargento Cabral at the Esperanza Base near the tip of the Antarctic peninsula. His father, Captain Jorge Emilio Palma, was head of the army detachment at the base. ["Life found under S Pole ice shelf"; The Times, 10 January 1978, pg6 col A] As part of a sovereignty dispute over Argentine Antarctica, Argentina airlifted in Emilio's mother, Sílvia Morella de Palma, then seven-months pregnant. [ TimesOnline; [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2859563.ece The power games that threaten world’s last pristine wilderness] ; 13 November 2007]

Since his parents were Argentine citizens, and he was born at an Argentine base in the Argentine Antarctic Territory, he was immediately granted citizenship of Argentina. Additionally, as the base falls within the claimed British Antarctic Territory and he was born before 1983 when British nationality by birth was automatically acquired, he also acquired British nationality at birth.

He is featured in the Guinness Book of Records as the only person in history known to be the "first" born on a continent. However, Solveig Gunbjørg Jacobsen of Norway, born in the island territory of South Georgia, is sometimes claimed as the actual first Antarctica birth due to that territory being considered part of Antarctica for some purposes.

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