One hundred years ago Roald Amundsen and four fellow Norwegian explorers
captured the geographical South Pole. The existence of the pole had been
known before, but Amundsen and his combatants were the first humans who
had the courage to undertake the dangerous voyage through ice and snow.
They reached the pole a one month before Amundsen's great rival Robert
Falcon Scott. The eventful and fascinating journey is described by
Amundsen himself in his account The South Pole, published shortly after
his return. Roald Amundsen, born in 1872 near Oslo, was one of the most
successful polar explorers. Already at the age of seventeen he became
part of Adrien de Gerlache's Belgica Expedition. Between 1903 and 1906
he was the first to travel the Nortwest Passage. On Nansen's famous ship
Fram Amundsen undertook a dangerous expedition to the Antarctic where he
captured the geographical South Pole. He died in 1928 during a flight to
save the Italian explorer Umberto Nobile.