On this day in 1912, Sir Robert Falcon Scott, explorer of the South Pole and officer of the British Royal Navy, wrote the final entry in his diary:

Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more. R. Scott. For God's sake look after our people.

Scott and the two remaining members of his expedition party never reached their base (two of their companions had already died during the journey). The team had reached the South Pole two months earlier, on January 17, but had discovered upon arrival that the Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen had beaten them there by more than a month. Above, Scott writes in his journal at his hut on Cape Evans on Ross Island off the coast of Antarctica.

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Image: Wikimedia Commons.