Shackleton assembles a 28-man crew for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition and names their ship Endurance after his family motto.

Queen Alexandra inspects Endurance docked on the River Thames and presents Shackleton with a British flag and inscribed Bible.

Endurance sets sail from England carrying mixed emotions as the country enters World War I.

Norwegian whalers at the Grytviken station on South Georgia Island warn Shackleton that the ice pack is dangerously thick this year.

Endurance becomes completely trapped in the Antarctic ice pack less than 100 miles from the continent.

A massive blizzard hammers Endurance with gale-force winds, causing severe ice pressure that begins cracking the ship.

Shackleton orders the crew to stop pumping and abandon the collapsing Endurance, raising the flag one final time.

The crew watches the last of Endurance disappear beneath the ice from their makeshift camp on the frozen surface.

McNeish refuses to haul the lifeboats across the ice, claiming the Ship's Articles are void; Shackleton reads the articles aloud and confronts him.

After the westward march across ice repeatedly stalls, the men establish a new frozen camp called Patience Camp.

With their ice floe shrunk to just 50 yards across, Shackleton orders the three lifeboats launched into open water.

After days struggling through open water in small boats, all three crews reach Elephant Island and many men weep with relief.

Shackleton selects five men including Worsley and Crean to join him on the James Caird's 800-mile rescue journey to South Georgia Island.

Shackleton, Crean, and Worsley set out to cross the uncharted mountainous interior of South Georgia Island on foot.

The rescue ship Yelcho arrives at Elephant Island with Shackleton aboard and all remaining men are saved.

Ernest Shackleton launches his ambitious Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition with a celebrated 28-man crew and a ship built for polar ice. After receiving an ice warning at a South Georgia whaling station, Endurance becomes trapped in the Antarctic ice pack and is eventually destroyed by the ice's crushing pressure. Shackleton leads his stranded men across the frozen surface before launching three lifeboats into the open ocean, arriving at Elephant Island after days of harrowing travel. With all 28 men alive but stranded, Shackleton departs on the James Caird for an 800-mile rescue voyage to South Georgia Island. After crossing the island's uncharted mountains on foot, Shackleton reaches the whaling station and organizes a rescue mission. He returns to Elephant Island on the Yelcho and brings every last man home safely.

The headline journey from expedition launch to miraculous rescue.

A stowaway named Percy Blackborrow is discovered after Endurance departs Buenos Aires; Shackleton accepts him into the crew without hesitation.

Endurance departs the Grytviken whaling station later than planned after Shackleton waits an extra month hoping warmer weather will break the ice.

Three days after leaving South Georgia Island, Endurance encounters growlers—large chunks of scraping ice—far north of their usual range.

Endurance crosses the Antarctic Circle and the crew celebrates by singing as the sled dogs howl along with them.

The crew tests the motor sledge on an ice floe and finds it so impractical they decide never to use it again.

The crew builds elaborate snow-and-sealskin shelters called dogloos for the sled dogs, creating a community they name Dog Town.

The crew holds an Antarctic Dog Derby race on a 700-yard course on the ice; Frank Wild and his dog team win.

Fourteen sled dogs suddenly die; the two doctors perform autopsies and discover the animals had worms.

Shackleton allows Leonard Hussey to keep his banjo, believing the crew will need the comfort of music in the hard months ahead.

Two crew members wade into the flooded Endurance cabins and retrieve hundreds of Hurley's glass photographic plates before the ship is lost.

A leopard seal charges across the ice toward crew member Orde-Lees; Frank Wild shoots it dead from a tent.

Frank Wild leads 18 men back to Ocean Camp to retrieve supplies and the abandoned Stancomb Wills lifeboat.

A giant flock of Adélie penguins arrives on the crew's ice floe and the men catch more than 600 for food.

Frank Wild sails the Stancomb Wills to scout a safer campsite and returns with news of a better spot seven miles west.

The ship's doctors successfully amputate Blackborrow's frostbitten left toes, which have developed gangrene, completing the operation in under an hour.

While the headline events drove the expedition forward, a series of smaller but crucial moments shaped the crew's experience and survival chances. From the discovery of a stowaway in Buenos Aires to the first signs of dangerous ice encountered near South Georgia Island, the early journey carried warnings of the trouble ahead. Stuck in the ice for months, the men forged bonds through dog-sled racing, improvised shelters, and shared hardship, while practical decisions like retrieving Hurley's glass photographic plates and the abandoned Stancomb Wills lifeboat proved essential later on. As conditions worsened at Patience Camp, leopard seal attacks and dwindling food supplies tested the crew's resolve. When they finally reached Elephant Island, the work of finding a safer campsite, building shelter, and treating serious medical conditions kept Wild and the remaining crew occupied during their long wait for rescue.

The vital secondary moments that shaped the crew's survival.

Winston Churchill telegraphs the single word 'PROCEED,' allowing Shackleton's expedition to continue as Britain enters World War I.

Shackleton privately confides to Worsley his first real doubts, fearing they may be forced to continue the expedition without the ship.

A floe estimated at a million tons bears down on the Endurance from the port side and pushes hard against the ship for a full hour.

Ice pressure squeezes Endurance from both sides, lifting the ship and pushing it onto its side at a 30-degree angle.

Shackleton orders the lifeboats, supplies, and equipment hauled off the Endurance as the hull springs leaks and the decks crack apart.

Shackleton drops his gold cigarette case and coins into the snow, modeling that only essential items will be kept going forward.

Shackleton announces the men must abandon their ice camp and haul the lifeboats westward toward Paulet Island.

For the first time, the crew feels the slow swell of the ocean lifting the ice beneath their feet, signaling open water is close.

The ice floe cracks during the night and crew member Ernest Holness plunges into the freezing water in his sleeping bag; Shackleton pulls him out.

Shackleton is stranded on a drifting piece of ice in the darkness and disappears from sight before the crew launches a boat to rescue him.

Fifteen inches of ice encases the James Caird above the waterline and threatens to capsize it; the crew hacks it away in five-minute shifts.

The James Caird crew discovers saltwater has seeped into a freshwater cask, forcing strict rationing of their dwindling water supply.

Unable to safely camp on a frozen mountain pass after dark, Shackleton leads all three men in sliding a mile down the slope.

The Grytviken factory manager fails to recognize Shackleton and his companions when they arrive; he weeps upon learning who they are.

Shackleton suffers a fatal heart attack shortly after arriving at South Georgia Island during a new Antarctic expedition.

The story of the Endurance is defined not just by what happened, but by the pivotal moments that determined whether the crew would survive. Winston Churchill's single-word telegram gave the voyage its go-ahead, while Shackleton's first private doubts to Worsley foreshadowed the disaster to come. The ice's relentless assault on Endurance — from a million-ton floe to the ship listing at 30 degrees — made abandonment inevitable, and Shackleton's decision to model leaving behind even gold coins set the tone for the bare survival ahead. On the open water, two near-fatal moments in a single night — a man plunging through the ice and Shackleton drifting away alone in the darkness — captured how close the entire crew came to catastrophe. The rescue mission reached its desperate climax when three exhausted men slid down a South Georgia mountainside in the dark and staggered into the whaling station, unrecognizable to those who had once celebrated them. Shackleton's story ended as it began — on South Georgia Island — where he died on a final expedition, never having crossed Antarctica but having brought every man who followed him home alive.

The critical decisions and revelations that decided whether the crew would live or die.