Roald Amundsen (
1872--
1928) was a
Norwegian explorer of
Antarctica who led the first expedition in
1911--
1912 to sucessfully reach the
South Pole (on
December 14). His party preceded the arrival of that of his bitter rival,
Robert Falcon Scott of the
United Kingdom, by over a month. Amundsen recounted his journey in the book
The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the "Fram", 1910--1912. Amundsen died in 1928 in an
airplane crash in the
Arctic Ocean; he had been on a rescue mission. His airplane was never found.
A large crater covering the Moon's south pole is named [Amundsen Crater]? after him.
External References
An e-text? of Arthur G. Chater's 1912 English translation of The South Pole is available from Project Gutenberg: