Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton

Born in County Kildare, Ireland, in 1874, he grew up partly in London and went to sea as a teenager, later joining the merchant navy. He first travelled to Antarctica on Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery expedition, an experience that helped launch his own career as a polar explorer.

He went on to lead the Nimrod expedition of 1907–09, which came closer to the South Pole than anyone had before, and he was knighted afterward. His name is most closely tied to the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–17: after the Endurance was trapped and crushed in pack ice, he led his men through months of hardship, including an open-boat voyage to South Georgia, and all 28 survived.

He returned south again in 1921, but died of a heart attack in 1922 while his ship was anchored at South Georgia. Since then, his reputation has only grown, not just for exploration but for the way he inspired loyalty and kept hope alive in extreme conditions.