Fridtjof Nansen was born in Kristiania (Oslo) in 1861. He led the five man team that made the first crossing of Greenland in 1888. Being landed on the island`s east coast, the only route to survival was across the island to the inhabited west coast.
In 1890 he launched the idea of crossing the Arctic in a ship frozen in the ice, floating on a current from east to west across the North Pole. Although the idea was ridiculed by many experts, the ship Fram made the drift unharmed from 1893-96, while Nansen and his companion Hjalmar Johansen reached the farthest north of 86°14`in a grueling 18 month sledging expedition from the ship.
Nansen later had a distiunguished career in science, as a diplomat and a humanitarian, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922.
He died in 1930.
