Robert Scott was a hero to the British people because of his valiant attempt to bring glory to the British Empire by being the first to reach the South Pole. His body was found on Nov. 12, 1912. He set off from New Zealand in 1910 to try to beat Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen to the pole. Known as the Tierra Nova expedition, after the name of the ship, it was ill-fated from the beginning as the ship almost sank in a storm and was ice-bound for 20 days. Scott should have taken the hint. Scott had a plan. He would challenge the accepted belief that the key to reaching the pole was using dog sleds. He would use motorized tractor, Manchurian ponies, and dogs. He and eleven men set off on Nov. 1, 1912, not knowing that Amundsen had left eleven days earlier from a base 69 miles closer to the pole. And using just dogs and skis. Early on Scott’s tractors broke down and his horses proved poorly suited for the weather and the task. Scott sent back seven men and the dogs before proceeding on foot with four on the last leg of the trek. They pulled the sledges themselves. On Jan. 17, 1912, they reached their destination, only to find the remains of Amundsen’s camp. Amundsen had smoked a cigar and put up a Norwegian flag five weeks earlier. Now the disappointed Scott faced an 862 return journey. The quintet faced bitter cold, frostbite, and lack of food. The relief force that was supposed to meet them half way did not come. Two died before the final trio were brought to ground by a blizzard, just eleven miles from a supply cache. Scott and the other two were found by a search party on this day. With his body were his journals and letters which helped lionize him in Great Britain. It took years for historians to point out that Scott was a brave fool.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Falcon_Scott#Terra_Nova_expedition,_1910%E2%80%931912
https://www.history.com/news/the-treacherous-race-to-the-south-pole
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