From a medical student to a polar researcher. Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) was the first to reach the South Pole 110 years ago
Abstract
Roald Amundsen was born on July 16, 1872 into the family of a Norwegian shipowner. At his mother's request, after graduating, Roald enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine in Christiania (now the capital city of Oslo).
He was most interested in the issue of thermoregulation and adaptation to the cold. After the death of his mother in the fourth year of medicine at the age of 21, he left the university and began to fulfill his old boyhood dreams.
In August 1897 in the role of second officer and helmsman of the ship Belgica he set out for Antarctica for the first time with Commander Baron Adrien de Gerlach. Between 1903 and 1906, Amundsen with the ship Gjöa sailed the Northwest Passage around the north coast of Canada.
On December 14, 1911, he with four compatriots as the first polar explorer reached the South Pole. On May 12, 1926, he flew with the Norge airship over the North Pole.
After the crash of the airship Italia, directed by his friend Umberto Nobile, launched on June 18, 1928 for a rescue mission. From that moment on, no one of the crew members was seen.
The plane is thought to have crashed in a fog in the Barents Sea.