1-152-188 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Roald Engelbrecht Gravning Amundsen (1872-1928), Norwegian explorer, at the South Pole, 1911. Amundsen led the first expedition to reach the South Pole, arriving in December 1911, one month before the ill-fated British expedition commanded by Captain Scott. In 1918 he became the first to navigate the Northwest Passage, discovering in the process that the route could never be navigable for large vessels. In 1928 he was killed in the Arctic in a plane crash while searching for the missing Italian aeronaut Umberto Nobile.