Every February 22, the National Day of Argentine Antarctica is commemorated, one of the most important events on the national calendar.

The origin of the date lies in the fact that on February 22, but in 1904, it was the first time that an Argentine set foot in Antarctica and raised the national flag in a territory that, since then, would never cease to have our presence.

That first man in the southern continent was Hugo Alberto Acuña, an 18-year-old young man from Bahia who joined the first expedition to the Orkney Islands, in order to gather meteorological information from the area for the National Ministry of Agriculture.

This precedent, in addition to being a great echo in the area of ??sovereignty, was formally instituted on November 26, 1974, through Law No. 20,827, which was published in the Official Gazette 23,043, thus declaring February 22 as the Argentine Antarctic Day.

The Argentine Antarctic or Argentine Antarctic Sector, as it is also called, is considered part of our national territory. It integrates an area delimited by the 25º and 74º West meridians and the 60º South latitude parallel, giving shape to what was formerly the National Territory of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands, today converted into a province.