At age 75, the trailblazer became the first African American woman to make it to the North Pole. Amundsen was also the first person to sail around the world through the Northeast and Northwest passages, from the Atlantic to the Pacific (in 1905). She reached the South Pole four years later when she was 79. He led the three-man In the Footsteps of Scott expedition, which reached the South Pole on January 11 1986, and three years later headed the eight-man Icewalk expedition, which arrived at the North Pole on May 14, 1989. The (undisputed) first person to walk to the North Pole was British Wally Herbert in 1969. Edmund Hillary became the first person to accomplish the three tasks when he trekked to the summit of Mount Everest in May 1953. The first person to reach the South Pole was Norwegian Roald Amundsen in 1911. Amundsen and his small expedition reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911, traveling by dog sled. Along with two pilots, the two explorers flew to the northernmost latitude ever reached by aircraft, making Amundsen and Ellsworth the first men to get that far as well. He was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles.
The first man to walk to both the North and the South Poles was Robert Swan (UK). In January of 1958 he reached the South Pole, and in 1985 he reached the North Pole alongside Neil Armstrong. Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer, was one of the greatest figures in the field of polar exploration. Others had claimed to have reached the North Pole before, but all previous claims have been disputed. He was the first explorer to transit the Northwest Passage (1903–05), the first to reach the South Pole (1911), and the first to fly over the North Pole in an airship (1926). In 1926, 14 years after becoming the first man to reach the South Pole, Roald Amundsen found himself at the North one as well, making him the first person to reach both.