The first man to reach the south pole

Bettmann via Getty Images Captain Roald Amundsen, circa 1923. In 1911, Roald Amundsen and his Norwegian expedition gathered among the snow and ice at the southernmost tip of the world. Everyone put their hands on the Norwegian flag and triumphantly stuck it into the frozen ground, thus securing Amundsen’s legacy as the first man to reach the South Pole. But it’s hardly the only thing this intrepid explorer accomplished. Fascinated by polar exploration from a young age, Amundsen spent most of his life venturing to some of the world’s coldest places. The explorer sailed through the icy waters of the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage, and charted the world’s first transarctic flight over the North Pole. But in the end, Roald Amundsen died an explorer’s death. While searching for a lost airship, he vanished somewhere over the Arctic Ocean — disappearing into the icy waters that he’d dedicated his life to understanding. The Boy Who Dreamed Of Being An Explorer Born on July 16, 1872 in Borge, Norway, Roald Engelbreth Gravning Amundsen knew he wanted to explore the world from a young age. Powerfully built and standing over six feet tall, Amundsen came from a long line of seafaring folk. He was proud to be called the “last of the Vikings,” according to Belgica in 1899 — the first expedition to winter in the Antarctic — he set out on his own. Estate of Emil Bieber/Klaus Niermann/Getty Images Roald Amundsen, circa 1900. In 1903, 31-year-old Roald Amundsen embarked on an ex...

Few men in recent times have displayed the obsessive desire for exploration more clearly than Roald Amundsen. The intrepid Norwegian was the first person to have visited both North and South Poles, and he was also the first to reach the South Pole in 1911. His 1926 air expedition to the North Pole came 17 years after Robert E. Peary became Early Life & Explorations Amundsen was born in the town of Borge, Norway on July 16, 1872. Although he was born into a family of captains and ship-owners, it appeared as if Amundsen was destined for a very different career. He promised his mother that he would become a doctor and went to university to get his qualifications. However, as soon as she died, when he was 21, he left university and began his legendary career as an explorer. His first foray into the world of exploration was in the They were trapped and poorly prepared, but they survived due to the ship’s doctor, Frederick Cook (he later claimed to have reached the North Pole in 1908). He knew the crew could die from scurvy due to a lack of vitamin C, so he hunted animals in the knowledge that Fram. Wikimedia Amundsen and the Northwest Passage Amundsen’s first attempt at leading an expedition was an unqualified success. In 1903, he decided to travel Rather than getting bogged down with a large ship and crew, Amundsen traveled light and made the journey with a crew of six aboard the Gjoa, a 45-ton fishing vessel with a small gasoline engine. His plan was to keep the ship close to...

What were the circumstances that surrounded Roald Amundsen’s death?Learn more about Amundsen’s final flight. Roald Amundsen, in full Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen, (born July 16, 1872, Borge, near Oslo, Norway—died June 18, 1928?, Arctic Ocean), Norwegian explorer who was the first to reach the With funds resulting from his Antarctic adventure, Amundsen established a successful Maud, and tried in 1918 to complete his old plan of drifting across the North Pole, but he was forced to abandon this scheme in favour of trying to reach the North Pole by The South Pole (1912) and, with Ellsworth, First Crossing of the Polar Sea (1927). This article was most recently revised and updated by

The continent of Antarctica makes up most of the Antarctic region. The Antarctic is a cold, remote area in the Southern Hemisphere encompassed by the Antarctic Convergence. The Antarctic Convergence is an uneven line of latitude where cold, northward-flowing Antarctic waters meet the warmer waters of the world’s oceans. The Antarctic covers approximately 20 percent of the Southern Hemisphere. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent in terms of total area. (It is larger than both Oceania and Europe.) Antarctica is a unique continent in that it does not have a native human population. There are no countries in Antarctica, although seven nations claim different parts of it: New Zealand, Australia, France, Norway, the United Kingdom, Chile, and Argentina. The Antarctic also includes island territories within the Antarctic Convergence. The islands of the Antarctic region are: South Orkney Islands, South Shetland Islands, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands, all claimed by the United Kingdom; Peter I Island and Bouvet Island, claimed by Norway; Heard and McDonald islands, claimed by Australia; and Scott Island and the Balleny Islands, claimed by New Zealand. Physical Geography Physical Features The Antarctic Ice Sheet dominates the region. It is the largest single piece of ice on Earth. This ice sheet even extends beyond the continent when snow and ice are at their most extreme. The ice surface dramatically grows in size from about three million square kilometers (1....

• العربية • Azərbaycanca • Башҡортса • Беларуская • Български • Català • Čeština • Dansk • Deutsch • Español • Esperanto • فارسی • Français • Galego • 한국어 • Bahasa Indonesia • Italiano • עברית • ქართული • Македонски • 日本語 • Norsk bokmål • Norsk nynorsk • Plattdüütsch • Polski • Português • Română • Русский • Suomi • Svenska • Türkçe • Українська • 吴语 • 中文 • First to reach the South Pole • First exploration of • Discovery of Route Amundsen's route compared to The first ever expedition to reach the Amundsen's initial plans had focused on the Arctic and the conquest of the Fram was leaving their last port of call, Amundsen made his Antarctic base, which he named "Framheim", in the The expedition's success was widely applauded, though the story of Scott's heroic failure overshadowed its achievement in the United Kingdom. Amundsen's decision to keep his true plans secret until the last moment was criticised by some. Recent polar historians have more fully recognised the skill and courage of Amundsen's party; the Background [ ] Gjøa, the small sloop in which Amundsen and his crew conquered the Northwest Passage, 1903–06 Amundsen was born in Magdalena for a voyage to the Arctic. After several further voyages he qualified as a Belgica 's voyage marked the beginning of what became known as the In November1906 the American Belgica, set off northwards on what was ostensibly a hunting trip but was rumoured to be an attempt on the North Pole. Nimrod Expedition sailed for Antarctica, wh...

January 1773: Captain James Cook becomes the first recorded navigator to cross the Antarctic Circle. January 1820: Antarctica is first sighted. The first person to actually see the Antarctic mainland has been debated: in the last week of January, Thaddeus von Bellingshausen reported seeing 'an ice shore of extreme height' during a Russian expedition to the Antarctic. Around the same time, Royal Navy officer Edward Bransfield reported seeing 'high mountains, covered with snow' during a British mapping expedition. Captain Cook's expedition 50 years previously never sighted land. A print depicting James Weddell's 1822-24 expedition to Antarctica ( 1831-32 Captain John Biscoe becomes the third person after Cook and Bellingshausen to circumnavigate Antarctica. During his expedition, he sights new areas of the continent including Enderby Land and Graham Land. 1839-41 James Clark Ross commands Erebus and Terror (the ships later to be lost during 1898-99 The Belgian ship Belgica led by Adrien de Gerlache becomes the first vessel to spend a winter in the Antarctic after becoming trapped in ice for a year. Among the crew on the ship is Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, later to become the first person to reach the South Pole. 1899 Norwegian Carsten Borchgrevink leads the first British expedition in what would come to be known as the ‘Heroic Age' of Antarctic exploration. Borchgrevink's expedition is the first to spend a winter on the Antarctic mainland, and the first to use dogs an...

“Another hard grind in the afternoon and five miles added,” British explorer It was mid-January 1912, and the 43-year-old Royal Navy officer was nearly 800 miles into a journey to one of the last unexplored places on the globe: the geographic South Pole. Scott’s five-man party had already endured brushes with blizzards and frostbite during their trek. They were now less than 80 miles from the finish line, but a single question still loomed over their progress: would they be the first group of men in history to reach the South Pole, or the second? Scott’s frozen ordeal had begun over a year earlier, when his ship Terra Nova had arrived on Ross Island in Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound. His 34-man shore party was tasked with conducting scientific research and collecting wildlife and rock samples, but Scott, who had previously led an Antarctic mission in 1902, was also determined to make a run at the Pole. Before leaving on the expedition, he had vowed “to reach the South Pole and to secure for the Amundsen Changes Course and Race Is On Scott’s mission was made all the more urgent by the knowledge that another explorer was seeking the Pole. In 1909, Amundsen had announced a new expedition to navigate the ice-floe-riddled waters of the Arctic to the North Pole. He had hoped to be the first man to achieve the feat, but after the American explorers Frederick Cook and Robert Peary both claimed to have beaten him to the punch, Amundsen secretly changed his plans. Without telling his fi...