Ellsworth, Lincoln, 1880-1951

Lincoln Ellsworth (b. May 12, 1880, Chicago, Illinois-d. May 26, 1951, New York City), American explorer, engineer, and scientist. Ellsworth led the first trans-Arctic (1926) and trans-Antarctic (1935) air crossings. He first attempted to fly over the North Pole in 1925 with Roald Amundsen. Their planes were forced down onto the ice short of their goal, and the explorers spent 30 days trapped on the surface. In 1926, Ellsworth accompanied Amundsen on his second effort to fly over the Pole in the airship Norge, designed and piloted by the Italian engineer Umberto Nobile, in a flight from Svalbard to Alaska. On May 12, they made the first undisputed sigthing of the Geographic North Pole.

Ellsworth made four expeditions to Antarctica between 1933 and 1939, attempting twice (in 1933 and 1934) to cross the continent before succeeding the following year. In all four, he used as his aircraft transporter and base a former Norwegian herring boat that he named Wyatt Earp after his hero. On November 23, 1935, Ellsworth discovered the Ellsworth Mountains of Antarctica when he made a trans-Antarctic flight from Dundee Island to the Ross Ice Shelf. He gave the descriptive name Sentinel Range, which was later named for the northern half of the Ellsworth Mountains. Ellsworth was a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History.

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