Thursday, December 14, 2006
This Day in Exploring History
On this day in 1911, Norwegian Roald Amundsen becomes first person to reach the South Pole, that is, he and his four companions. Amundsen's team used 52 dogs to pull 4 sleds and they ate the dogs (and fed them to the surviving dogs) in big groups on the way to the pole. Robert Falcon Scott and his four companions, trudging along on cross country skis pulling one big sled, get to the pole 35 days later and all die on the way back to the coast from exhaustion. Amundsen disappeared in a sea plane crash while trying to rescue downed Italian airshipmen in the Arctic on June 18, 1928.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:21 AM 
