1-151-942 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Departure of the Andree balloon expedition to the North Pole, Spitzbergen, 11 July 1897. In 1897 a Swedish explorer named Salomon Andree made an attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon. Together with two colleagues, Dr Nils Strindberg and Knut Fraenkel, he took off from Spitzbergen, but the balloon was forced down onto the ice by the weight of ice accumulating on the outside of the balloon in a freezing fog. Rescue attempts failed to find the missing explorers, whose bodies were not located until 1930. Theories as to how they died include exposure, the effects of eating infected polar bear meat, or carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty stove.