Amundsen, Roald Engelbrecht Gravning (1872–1928)

Norwegian explorer who in 1903–06 became the first person to navigate the Northwest Passage. Beaten to the North Pole by US explorer Robert Peary in 1910, he reached the South Pole ahead of Captain Scott in 1911.

In 1918, Amundsen made an unsuccessful attempt to drift across the North Pole in the ship Maud and in 1925 tried unsuccessfully to fly from Spitsbergen, in the Arctic Ocean north of Norway, to the Pole by aeroplane. The following year he joined the Italian explorer Umberto Nobile (1885–1978) in the airship Norge, which circled the North Pole twice and landed in Alaska. Amundsen was killed in a plane crash over the Arctic Ocean while searching for Nobile and his airship Italia.