Roald Amundsen (July 16, 1872-June 22, 1928) was a Norwegian polar explorer who was the first person to fly over the North Pole in a dirigible (May 11-13, 1926) and was the first person to reach the South Pole.
Amundsen and his small expedition reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911, traveling by dog sled. near Oslo, Norway. As a teenager, he had been fascinated by the adventures of the explorer John Franklin, and wanted to be an explorer himself.
The North Magnetic Pole and the Northwest Passage,In 1899, Amundsen became a sea captain himself and organized an expedition to go to the North Magnetic Pole. In 1900, he bought a ship called the Gjoa. On June 16, 1903, with a crew of 6, Amundsen sailed from Oslo, Norway, around the south of Greenland, through Baffin Bay, and on to King William Island (in northern Canada), where they spent two years building two ships, an astronomical observatory, and a couple of huts. While on the island, the Netsilik Indians taught them Arctic survival techniques. During this time, they also mapped that frozen, island-studded area.
In 1904, Amundsen and his small crew continued on to the North Magnetic Pole, which had moved 30 miles since it was originally located by James Clark Ross in 1831. This was the first time that anyone had realized that the magnetic poles do indeed move. Finaly,Amundsen died in a plane crash in the summer of 1928, while attempting to rescue his friend Nobile, who had been lost in a dirigible crash in the Arctic.
