GREAT ADVENTURERS FROM THE LAND OF GREAT ADVENTURES
 

Roald Amundsen (1872-1928), using countryman Fridtjof Nansen’s wooden polar exploration ship, Fram, led the first successful expedition to reach the South Pole, arriving Dec. 14, 1911, just ahead of Britain's ill-fated Robert Scott.

           Ironically, Amundsen had hoped to be first to reach the North Pole, but changed goals only after hearing the American Robert Peary’s claim to have reached the North Pole. Burnt by the news, Amundsen, already aware of Scott’s planned attempt in Antarctica, hastily and secretly planned to get there first.

-
           Later, Amundsen was cheated from another North Pole first, when American Admiral Richard Byrd claimed to have flown a plane over the North Pole with Floyd Bennett. Subsequent first-person historical evidence now suggests that Byrd never quite made it, and that Amundsen, who crossed the pole in a rigid airship a short time later in 1926 actually was first.

          Amundsen disappeared while flying a rescue mission to save a fellow explorer in the Arctic in 1928.
-

-