In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

POLARITIES
In the presence of Benito Mussolini, the Italian-built dirigible Norge is
solemnly handed over to the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen at a
Rome airport, on Saturday, April 10. The Norge is eighty-two meters
long, has a volume of 19,200 cubic meters, and is propelled by three
German Maybach engines of 260 horsepower each. It was designed and
constructed by Umberto Nobile [see Engineers], and is about to undertake
the first flight over the North Pole, for which Amundsen has won
generous sponsorship in the United States (Annees-memoire, 116-117;
Chronik, 95). On April 6, 1909, Robert E. Peary of the United States
became the first to reach the North Pole by an overland route-and
barely two and a half years later Amundsen led an expedition to the
South Pole. Eleven months before the departure of the Norge from
Rome, he made an unsuccessful attempt to reach the North Pole in a
hydroplane (Die wilden Zwanziger, 153ff.). [see Airplanes]
Flying by way of Pulham, Oslo, and Leningrad, the Norge arrives at
a specially constructed hangar on Kings Bay in Spitzbergen, on Friday,
May 7. But a few days later Amundsen and Nobile, who is the commander
of the dirigible, receive word that Richard Evelyn Byrd and
Floyd Bennet, two U.S. Navy pilots, have already reached the Pole-on
May 9 at 9:04 A.M., aboard a three-engine Fokker. Their round trip from
Kings Bay lasted sixteen hours. Similar record-breaking races, which
evoke worldwide interest because they confirm the idea of man's complete
domination of the planet [see Endurance, Ocean Liners, Center =
172