129 Sailors Went to the Arctic. They Ate Each Other to Survive.

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]In 1845, and crew and poor and force flying 129 British sailors set out to conquer the Arctic. They never made it home. Sir John Franklin's expedition had the best ships, the finest equipment, and enough food for 3 years. But the ice had other plans. The ships Erebus and Terror became frozen prisons, trapped for years in the merciless Arctic. As supplies ran out, civilized Victorian gentlemen began to starve. The lead solder in their food cans slowly poisoned their minds. Men went insane.

[00:00:32]Then the unthinkable happened. They turned on each other. Inuit witnesses described encounters with desperate dying white men wandering the frozen wasteland. When archaeologists finally found evidence on King William Island, the truth was horrifying. Human bones with cut marks. The remains told a story of cannibalism. Of men so desperate they consumed their own crewmates. In 2014, both ships were finally discovered on the ocean floor. The Franklin expedition remains one of history's most disturbing tales of how quickly civilization can collapse when survival is the only law.