Why did Russia plant its flag in the bed of the Arctic Ocean in 2007?  Why is the American flag on the moon?  Why did Europeans plant their flags and crosses along the North American coastline?  And why did President James Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams order an American naval captain to travel to the Columbia River “to reassert the title of the United States.”  And then, why did this captain perform a ritual in the presence of Chinook Indians in which he raised the U.S. flag, turned some soil with a shovel, and nailed up a lead plate that said “Taken possession of, in the name and on the behalf of the United States by Captain James Biddle”?
    The answer to all these questions is found in the international law called the Doctrine of Discovery.
Historically, staking a physical claim was the first rule of Discovery. Spanish, Portuguese, English, and French explorers engaged in all sorts of rituals on encountering new lands.  In 1776-78, for example, Captain James Cook established English claims to British Columbia by burying bottles of English coins.  In 1774, he even erased Spanish marks of possession in Tahiti and replaced them with English marks.  Spain immediately dispatched explorers to restore its claim.  The Lewis and Clark expedition similarly made Discovery claims by branding trees and rocks in the Pacific Northwest. 
    Today, though, one might think there are no “new” lands to find on planet Earth.  But climate change is shrinking the Arctic icecap and opening access to new sea lanes, fisheries, oil fields and minerals.  A race to explore, conquer, and acquire another “new world” is on.
“Finders keepers” lives on.  The proof is that Russian flag planted miles below the North Pole.