History for the day: 1911: Amundsen reaches the South Pole

History.com has this for 14 December:

Norwegian Roald Amundsen became the first explorer to reach the South Pole, beating his British rival, Robert Falcon Scott.
Amundsen, born in Borge, near Oslo, Norway in 1872, was one of the great figures in polar exploration. In 1897, he was first mate on a Belgian expedition that was the first to winter in the Antarctic. In 1903, he guided the sloop Gjöa through the Northwest Passage and around the Canadian coast, the first navigator to accomplish the treacherous journey. Amundsen planned to be the first man to the North Pole, and he was about to embark in 1909 when he learned that the American Robert Peary had achieved the feat.
Amundsen completed his preparations and in June of 1910 sailed instead for Antarctica, where the English explorer Robert F. Scott was also headed, with the aim of reaching the South Pole. In early 1911, Amundsen sailed his ship into Antarctica’s Bay of Whales and set up base camp sixty miles closer to the pole than Scott. In October, both explorers set off, with Amundsen using sleigh dogs, and Scott employing Siberian motor sledges, Siberian ponies, and dogs. On 14 December 1911, Amundsen’s expedition won the race to the Pole and returned safely to base camp in late January.
Scott’s expedition was less fortunate. The motor sleds broke down, the ponies had to be shot, and the dog teams were sent back, with Scott and four companions continuing on foot. On 18 January 1912, they reached the pole, only to find that Amundsen had preceded them by over a month. Weather on the return journey was exceptionally bad, with two members perishing, and a storm later trapped Scott and the other two survivors in their tent only eleven miles from their base camp. Scott’s frozen body was found later that year.
After his historic Antarctic journey, Amundsen established a successful shipping business. He later made attempts to become the first explorer to fly over the North Pole. In 1925, in an airplane, he flew within a hundred and fifty miles of the goal. In 1926, he passed over the North Pole in a dirigible (photo, below) just three days after American explorer Richard E. Byrd had apparently done so in an aircraft. In 1996, a diary that Byrd had kept on the flight was found that seemed to suggest that the he had turned back a hundred and fifty miles miles short of its goal because of an oil leak, making Amundsen’s dirigible expedition the first flight over the North Pole. In 1928, Amundsen lost his life while trying to rescue a fellow explorer whose dirigible had crashed at sea near Spitsbergen, Norway.

Rico says his Antarctic feat hasn't been repeated very many times, and only by people with a lot of heavy equipment... (Given Rico's loathing of the cold, he will not be visiting any of these places...)