Lost on the ice: The 1897 hot-air balloon attempt to reach the North Pole (opens in new tab)

Only traces remain of Salomon August Andrée’s 1897 attempt to reach the North Pole. From a base on the Svalbard archipelago, the engineer and his two companions had hoped to float a hydrogen balloon gracefully over the pole, drop a Swedish flag and claim the glory of first discovery. Their friends never saw them alive again. Their remains were found in 1930 on a small island in the Arctic Ocean and the story became internationally famous. The Library preserves several artifacts from the exped...