Roald Amundsen (July 16, 1872-June 18?, 1928) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the Antarctic expedition of 1910-1912 which was the first to reach the South Pole.
Amundsen was born to a family of Norwegian shipowners and captains in Borge near Fredrikstad. His father was Jens Amundsen. The fourth son in the family, his mother chose to keep him out of the maritime industry of the family and pressured him to become a doctor, a promise that Amundsen kept until his mother died when he was age 21. Amundsen had hidden a lifelong desire inspired by Fridtjof Nansen's crossing of Greenland in 1888 and the doomed Franklin Expedition. He decided on a life of exploration.
Scott of the Antarctic (1948)
