Get the latest tech news
Andrée and the Aeronauts' Voyage to the Top of the World (2013)
The story of three adventurers who tried to reach the North Pole via hydrogen balloon in 1897.
His experiments led him to believe that the upper atmosphere contained a “magnificent, regular system of winds, which only waited for aerial vessels.” Finally by 1895 he developed what he felt was a competent apparatus for converting an ordinary hydrogen balloon into a steerable airship—a proper dirigible. In 1902 a missionary in northern Canada relayed reports that Andrée and company had set down on the ice for the purposes of hunting when local “savage Eskimos” fisticuffed, murdered, and mutilated the explorers, but no evidence materialized to support these claims. A Swedish commission took possession of the relics and remains, and an honor guard aboard the Svensksund —the same vessel that had transported Andrée and party to their original balloon departure—escorted the coffins back home amidst flags, parades, and aeroplane flyovers.
Or read this on Hacker News
