Expedition members Edward A. Wilson, Robert F. Scott, Edgar Evans, Lawrence Oates, and Henry Robertson Bowers at the South Pole standing in front of Roald Amundsen's tent. 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 December 14, 1911, five weeks ahead of a British party led by Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition. Amundsen and his team returned safely to their base, and later learned that Scott and his four companions had died on their return journey. Printed from a negative recovered when the bodies were found.