Roald Amundsen was born on
July 16, 1872 in Borge, Norway. He was the first explorer
to reach the South Pole. He was the first to take a ship
voyage through the Northwest Passage. He was also one of
the first to to cross the Arctic by air.
In 1897 Roald sailed on the
Belgica, a Belgian expedition, that was the first to be
in the Antarctic during the winter. In 1903 he was the
first to sail through the Northwest Passage and around
the norhern Canadian coast. The journey ended at Herschel
Island in the Yukon in 1905.
Amundsen wanted to be the first man
to go to the North Pole. However, American Robert Peary
got there first in 1909. When Amundsen found out that he
could not be first, he decided to be the first man to
reach the South Pole.
He left Norway in June, 1910. He
set up his base sixty miles closer to the Pole than
explorer Robert Falcon Scott, who was also trying to be
the first to reach the South Pole. Amundsen, with 4
companions, 52 dogs, and 4 sledges, set out on October
19, 1911. They reached the South Pole on December 14,
1911, before Scott and his team.
In 1926 Amundsen went on a flight
with a 14 other explorers. They were the first to fly
over the North Pole from Europe to Alaska.
In 1928, Roald Amundsen lost his
life flying to rescue an engineer named Umberto Nobile.
Nobile had built the plane that Amundsen flew over the
North Pole. Amundsen's rescue plane crashed and was never
found.
