On July 15, 1916, a partial lunar eclipse occurred during Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, affecting the stranded Ross Sea party near Cape Evans in Antarctica. The eclipse complicated a critical ice crossing under polar night conditions, as the moon provided essential light. The men navigated the thin ice successfully despite the dimming, highlighting human endurance in extreme exploration.

Shackleton's saga, including this eclipse, inspired adventure literature and poetry on exploration and survival, influencing 20th-century modernist works. Poets like those in the Georgian and later generations drew on polar themes of isolation and resilience, paralleling wartime experiences and contributing to existential motifs in English-language poetry.