Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that can help answer the question.
Query: Who was the first to reach the South Pole?
The first expedition to reach the geographic South Pole was led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. He and four others arrived at the pole on 14December 1911,[n 1] five weeks ahead of a British party led by Robert Falcon Scott as part of the Terra Nova Expedition. Amundsen and his team returned safely to their base, and later knew that Scott and his four companions had died on their return journey.
The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Scientific Station is the southernmost habitation on Earth. It is continuously inhabited. Its name honors Roald Amundsen, whose Norwegian expedition reached the Geographic South Pole in December 1911, and Robert F. Scott, whose British expedition of five men reached the South Pole about one month later (in January 1912) in a race to become the first person ever to reach the South Pole. All of Scott's expedition perished during the journey back towards the coast, while all of Amundsen's expedition returned safely to their base on the seacoast of the continent.
The first person to reach all three locations was Edmund Hillary. He reached the top of Everest in May 1953, the South Pole in January 1958 and made it to the North Pole in company with Neil Armstrong in April 1985.
Hillary flew to the North Pole. The first person to reach all three locations on foot was Erling Kagge. He had reached all three by May 1994, being 6 months faster than the next person. On 5 August 1997 Antoine de Choudens (France, 1969–2009) became the only climber to accomplish the Three Poles Challenge on foot without using supplementary oxygen on the Everest climb. Tina Sjögren became the first woman to complete the challenge in 2002.
Ernest Shackleton, who had been a member of Scott's expedition, organized and led the Nimrod Expedition from 1907 to 1909. The expedition's primary objective was of reaching the South Pole. Based in McMurdo Sound, the expedition pioneered the Beardmore Glacier route to the South Pole, and the (limited) use of motorised transport. Its southern march reached 88°23'S, a new Farthest South record 97 geographical miles from the Pole before having to turn back. During the expedition, Shackleton was the first to reach the polar plateau. Parties led by T. W. Edgeworth David also became the first to climb Mount Erebus and to reach the South Magnetic Pole.
Tom Sjogren (also spelled Sjögren) is a US explorer originally from Sweden who has completed the Three Poles Challenge - climbing Mount Everest (in 1999, after three previous attempts) and leading unsupported expeditions to the North and South Poles. He completed the Three Poles Challenge with his wife, Tina; they are the first married couple to achieve this and she is the first woman to do so. They billed themselves at the time as "T & T". They also broke broadcasting records on two of their three expeditions: the world altitude broadcasting record on Everest and the first live audiovisual broadcast from the Antarctic ice cap (in November 2001). They reached the South Pole on February 2, 2002. On their expedition to the North Pole, they also broadcast live, and broke the speed record with a time of 118 days, reaching the Pole on 29 May 2002. At both poles, they raised an American flag a friend had found on the street in New York on September 11.
The explorer Scott had used Christchurch and Lyttelton as his New Zealand base for the British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–1904 and Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–1913. In between, Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition also used Lyttelton as the base for their attempt to reach the South Pole, but they failed to get there. The objective of the Terra Nova Expedition was to be the first to reach the geographical South Pole. Scott and four companions reached the pole on 1912, to find that a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had preceded them by 33 days. Scott's entire party died on the return journey from the pole. Their deaths resulted in them being treated as heroes throughout the British Empire.
Barbara Hillary (born June 12, 1931 in San Juan Hill, Manhattan, currently known as Lincoln Center) was the first known African-American woman to reach the North Pole, which she did at the age of 75 in 2007. She subsequently reached the South Pole in January 2011 at the age of 79, becoming the first African-American woman to reach both poles.
There are two claims, both disputed, about who was the first person to reach the geographic North Pole. Frederick Cook, accompanied by two Inuit men, Ahwelah and Etukishook claimed to have reached the Pole on April 21, 1908, although this claim is generally doubted. On April 6, 1909, Robert Peary claimed to be the first person in recorded history to reach the North Pole, accompanied by his employee Matthew Henson and four Inuit men Ootah, Seegloo, Egingway, and Ooqueah (although whether he actually reached the Pole is doubted by some).
In 2004 Marek Kamiński managed to reach both Poles in one year with disabled Polish boy Jan Mela. It was remarkable expedition as Mela was at that time 15 years old and after an accident where he lost one leg and one arm. The Arctic journey began on 4 April 2004 in Spitzbergen and finished on 24 April reaching the North Pole. The Antarctic journy started on 30 November 2004 and finished 31st December 2004 reaching the South Pole. Jan Mela became the youngest and also the first disabled person to reach the Poles.
In the General Summary chapter of "The Phantom of the Poles", Reed posed several questions that he claimed were explained by the Hollow Earth theory:
Admiral Peary claimed to have reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909. This would have invalidated Reed's premise that the poles cannot be reached. Although Peary's claim was, in its day, and continues to be controversial, on December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen undisputedly reached the South Pole. Subsequent expeditions to and flights over the south pole have conclusively demonstrated that there are no large holes there.
British explorer Robert Falcon Scott on the Discovery Expedition of 1901–04 was the first to attempt to find a route from the Antarctic coastline to the South Pole. Scott, accompanied by Ernest Shackleton and Edward Wilson, set out with the aim of travelling as far south as possible, and on 31 December 1902, reached 82°16′ S.[14] Shackleton later returned to Antarctica as leader of the British Antarctic Expedition (Nimrod Expedition) in a bid to reach the Pole. On 9 January 1909, with three companions, he reached 88°23' S– 112 miles (180km) from the Pole– before being forced to turn back.[15]
In 1926 Wisting participated in Amundsen's successful attempt to fly over the North Pole. In the airship "Norge" they reached the pole on 12 May 1926. The three previous claims to have arrived at the North Pole—by Frederick Cook in 1908, Robert Peary in 1909, and Richard E. Byrd in 1926 —are all disputed, as being either of dubious accuracy or outright fraud. Some of those disputing these earlier claims therefore consider the crew of the "Norge" to be the first verified explorers to have reached the North Pole. In addition Wisting, along with Amundsen, was one of the two first persons who had been to both the North Pole and the South Pole.
During the Nimrod Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1907, parties led by Edgeworth David became the first to climb Mount Erebus and to reach the South Magnetic Pole. Douglas Mawson, who assumed the leadership of the Magnetic Pole party on their perilous return, went on to lead several expeditions until retiring in 1931.[38] In addition, Shackleton and three other members of his expedition made several firsts in December 1908 – February 1909: they were the first humans to traverse the Ross Ice Shelf, the first to traverse the Transantarctic Mountains (via the Beardmore Glacier), and the first to set foot on the South Polar Plateau. An expedition led by Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen from the ship Fram became the first to reach the geographic South Pole on 14 December 1911, using a route from the Bay of Whales and up the Axel Heiberg Glacier.[39] One month later, the doomed Scott Expedition reached the pole.
She was also the first woman to cross both polar ice caps to reach the North and South Poles, as well as the first woman to ski across Greenland. In 1992-1993, Bancroft led a four-woman expedition to the South Pole on skis; this expedition was the first all-female expedition to cross the ice to the South Pole.
The Ohio State team with Jones at the head included geologist Eileen McSaveney, Kay Lindsay, a biologist, and Terry Lee Tickhill, a chemistry major. They spent four months in Antarctica in the McMurdo Dry Valleys collecting data and rock specimens. The team also briefly visited the South Pole. The first women in history reached the South Pole because of a request Jones' made when she was McMurdo station, the US Antarctic research station. Jones wanted an aerial view of the geology of the location where her team would work, and asked to join a supply flight to the Pole. The US Navy then invited all seven women in Antarctica at the time to be the first at the Pole. The women on the continent at that time were Jones and her team, New Zealand biologist Pam Young, Jean Pearson, a reporter for the Detroit Free Press, and Christine Muller-Schwarze, an American researcher. All but Muller-Schwarze, who declined as she did not want to interrupt her field work at Cape Crozier studying penguins, were the first women to reach the South Pole on November 12, 1969.
The school was named after Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer who led the first expedition to reach the South Pole. His expedition reached the pole on December 14, 1911. Designed by architect Paul Gerhardt, Roald Amundsen School opened on November 10, 1930, two years after the explorer died in a rescue mission to the North Pole. 
The glacier was discovered and climbed by Ernest Shackleton during his Nimrod Expedition of 1908. Although Shackleton turned back before reaching the South Pole, he established the first proven route towards the pole and, in doing so, became the first person to set foot upon the polar plateau. In 1911–1912, Captain Scott and his Terra Nova Expedition team reached the South Pole by similarly climbing the Beardmore. However, they reached the pole a month after Roald Amundsen and his team, who had chosen a route up the previously unknown Axel Heiberg Glacier. It was on the way back to the Nova expedition's base camp after they left the South Pole that Edgar Evans, one of the members of Scott's chosen team to go to on the final trek to the South Pole, died around the foot of Beardmore Glacier on February 17, 1912.
After Scott's retreat from the pole in January 1912, the location remained unvisited for nearly 18 years. On 28 November 1929, US Navy Commander (later Rear-Admiral) Richard E. Byrd and three others completed the first aircraft flight over the South Pole. Twenty-seven years later, Rear-Admiral George J. Dufek became the first person to set foot on the pole since Scott, when on 31 October 1956 he and the crew of R4D-5 Skytrain "Que Sera Sera" landed at the pole. Between November 1956 and February 1957, the first permanent South Pole research station was erected and christened the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in honour of the pioneer explorers. Since then the station had been substantially extended, and in 2008 was housing up to 150 scientific staff and support personnel. Dufek gave considerable assistance to the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1955–58, led by Vivian Fuchs, which on 19 January 1958 became the first party to reach the pole overland since Scott.
In Antarctica, Wright carried out numerous experiments on ice formations and ground radiation, and assisted meteorologist George Simpson. From January to mid-March 1911, he was one of four expedition members (with Thomas Griffith Taylor, Frank Debenham (Geologist) and Edgar Evans) who explored and mapped the western mountains of Victoria Land (the first western journey), performing scientific studies and geological observations. On 1 November 1911, Wright was a member of the Southern Party team that set off from their base camp at Cape Evans with the intention of reaching the South Pole. He hoped to be included in the polar party selected to accompany Scott on the final push to the Pole; however, on 22 December 1911 at latitude at 85° 15' South, seven weeks into the journey, while still 300 miles from the pole, he was in the first supporting party which Scott sent back. He spent the next five weeks helping the party navigate the 580 miles back to Cape Evans, where they waited for Scott and his party's return from the pole. Scott never arrived. On 12 November 1912, it was Wright, as a member of the 11-man search party led by Edward Atkinson, who first spotted the tent containing the bodies of Scott, Edward Wilson, and Henry Bowers, who had all perished on their return trek from the South Pole eight months earlier.
On 16 January 1912, as Scott's party neared the Pole, it was Bowers who first spotted a black flag left at a camp made by Roald Amundsen's polar party over a month previously. They knew then that they had been beaten in the race to be first to the South Pole. On 18 January, they arrived at the South Pole to find a tent left behind by Amundsen's party at their Polheim camp; inside, a dated note informed them that Amundsen had reached the Pole on 14 December 1911, beating Scott's party by 35 days. 
After Amundsen and Scott, the next people to reach the South Pole overland (albeit with some air support) were Edmund Hillary (January 4, 1958) and Vivian Fuchs (January 19, 1958) and their respective parties, during the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. There have been many subsequent expeditions to arrive at the South Pole by surface transportation, including those by Havola, Crary and Fiennes. The first group of women to reach the pole were Pam Young, Jean Pearson, Lois Jones, Eileen McSaveney, Kay Lindsay and Terry Tickhill in 1969.[16] In 1978-79 Michele Eileen Raney became the first woman to winter at the South Pole.[17]
As of 2010, Kazama was the only person to have reached both poles on a motorcycle. He reached the North Pole on 21 April 1987, and the South Pole on 3 January 1992. Kazama's trip to the South Pole set an overland speed record for the journey (24 days) which stood until 2005. He also set records for elevations reached on Mount Everest ( in 1985, in 1986), Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Fuji by motorcycle. In 1982, Kazama became the first Japanese national to finish the Dakar Rally. He won the Dakar Rally in the 500cc class in 1984. In 1987 he won the Rallye des Pharaons in the 250cc class.
The Nimrod Expedition of 1907–09, otherwise known as the British Antarctic Expedition, was the first of three expeditions to the Antarctic led by Ernest Shackleton. Its main target, among a range of geographical and scientific objectives, was to be first to the South Pole. This was not attained, but the expedition's southern march reached a Farthest South latitude of 88° 23' S, just from the pole. This was by far the longest southern polar journey to that date and a record convergence on either Pole. A separate group led by Welsh Australian geology professor Edgeworth David reached the estimated location of the South Magnetic Pole, and the expedition also achieved the first ascent of Mount Erebus, Antarctica's second highest volcano.
The first attempt to find a route to the South Pole was made by British explorer Robert Falcon Scott on the Discovery Expedition of 1901–04. Scott, accompanied by Ernest Shackleton and Edward Wilson, set out with the aim of traveling as far south as possible, and on 31 December 1902, reached . Shackleton later returned to Antarctica as leader of the Nimrod Expedition in a bid to reach the Pole. On 9 January 1909, with three companions, he reached – 112 statute miles from the Pole – before being forced to turn back.
Several years later, the Norwegian Captain Roald Amundsen and the Englishman Captain Robert Scott raced to become the first to reach the South Pole. Both expeditions started almost simultaneously but it was Amundsen who reached the pole first on December 14, 1911. Both men carried Tabloid outfits with them.