Kerguelen-Trémarec's expedition officially discovered the isolated subantarctic Kerguelen Islands on 12 February 1772 and claimed them for France.

In early 1772, Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec commanded the third French expedition sent in search of the fabled Terra Australis, with the fluyts Fortune and Gros Ventre. On 12 February 1772 the expedition officially discovered the Kerguelen Islands, an isolated subantarctic archipelago north of Antarctica in the southern Indian Ocean, and claimed it for France before returning to Mauritius. Before being officially catalogued in 1772, the islands had appeared as the "Ile de Nachtegal" on Philippe Buache's 1754 map of the islands of the Southern Ocean.

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