| Emilio Palma | |
|---|---|
| Born | Emilio Marcos Palma January 7, 1978 Esperanza Base, Trinity Peninsula, Antarctica |
| Nationality | Argentine |
| Known for | First human born in Antarctica |
| Parents | Jorge Emilio Palma (father) Silvia Morella de Palma (mother) |
Emilio Marcos Palma (born January 7, 1978) is an Argentine national who is the first person known to be born on the continent of Antarctica. Emilio weighed 7 pounds and 8 ounces (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 Argentine army detachment at the base.[1] While ten other people have since been born on Antarctica, Palma's birthplace remains the most southerly of anyone in history.
As part of a sovereignty dispute over Argentine Antarctica, Argentina airlifted in Emilio's mother, Silvia Morella de Palma, then seven months pregnant.[2] He was automatically granted Argentine citizenship by the government since his parents were both Argentine citizens, and he was born in the claimed Argentine Antarctica.
Additionally, as the base also falls within the claimed British Antarctic Territory, and he was born before 1983, when British nationality by birth could no longer be automatically acquired, he could also claim British nationality.
He is featured in the Guinness Book of Records as the first person in history known to be born on the continent. However, Solveig Gunbjørg Jacobsen of Norway, born in the island territory of South Georgia in 1913, is sometimes claimed as the actual first Antarctica birth as that territory being considered part of Antarctica for some purposes.