December 14th

On this day –  14^th December 1911 – Roald Amundsen became the first to reach the South Pole

Roald Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer who became the first to reach the South Pole in an expedition that lasted from 1910 to 1912. Amundsen’s original plans were to reach the North Pole, but the plans were changed in 1909, because other explorers had reached it already. Amundsen kept the new plans a secret due to founding issues, and even his crew believed, at the beginning of the expedition, that they were heading for the North Pole.

In October 1911 left Amundsen and his crew of four people their base “Framheim” on their way to the Pole. They reached it five weeks before the British explorer Robert Scott and the Terra Nova Expedition. The Norwegian explorer planted the Norwegian flag and started their return trip. Scott’s crew reached the South Pole, but the whole crew sadly died during the return trip.  

Amundsen died in 1928 when the plane he was in disappeared in a rescue mission in the Arctic.