The deadly race to the South Pole

Two exploration teams raced to the South Pole. Only one made it out alive.

Corrections: Unfortunately, we used an outdated version of the British flag in this video. The version here was discontinued in 1801 and replaced with the flag we know today. We also occasionally referred to the British team as English. In fact, some members of the team were Scottish and Welsh.

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Robert Falcon Scott was a British explorer who dreamed of being the first person to reach the South Pole. In 1912, he reached the Pole only to learn that his Norwegian rival, Roald Amundsen, had beat him to it. Caught by freakish weather and a string of bad luck, his entire party died trying to get back. Reasons for his failure range from his use of ponies rather than dogs to a highly unusual temperature drop that made the journey back impossible to survive.

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