Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 1, 2014

Carsten Borchgrevink (1864–1934) was an Anglo-Norwegian polar explorer and a pioneer of modern Antarctic travel. He was the precursor of Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen and others associated with the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. He began his exploring career in 1894 by joining a Norwegian whaling expedition, from which he brought back a collection of the first specimens of vegetable life within the Antarctic Circle. From 1898 to 1900 Borchgrevink led the British-financed Southern Cross Expedition, which in 1899 became the first to overwinter on the Antarctic mainland and the first to visit the Great Ice Barrier since the expedition of Sir James Ross nearly sixty years previously. Borchgrevink landed on the Barrier with two companions and made the first sledge journey on its surface, setting a new Farthest South record at 78°50'S. He was one of three scientists sent to the Caribbean in 1902 by the National Geographic Society to report on the aftermath of the Mount Pelée disaster. His pioneering work was recognised and honoured by several countries, and in 1912 he received a handsome tribute from Roald Amundsen, conqueror of the South Pole. (Full article...)

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