100 years ago today

Have you heard of the following people ?

Olav Bjaaland
Helmer Hanssen
Sverre Hassel
Oscar Wisting

It's likely the answer will be 'No'... although I may be doing you an injustice...

The 4 men were accompanied by Roald Amundsen, and on this day, 100 years ago, they arrived at the South Pole, ahead of Robert Falcon Scott and his companions.
There will be a great deal of coverage of the anniversary of Scott's arrival and subsequent death as we move into 2012.


This was a remarkable achievement given the nature of the environment, and the available technology. Amundsen had designed quite a lot of the items of equipment that he used, and made use of his experience travelling in the Arctic.

Visit the Discovering Antarctica website for more on this part of the world.

Update
Thanks to Mike McSharry for directing me to the BING home page for today, which is rather wonderful and does mention Amundsen...


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