#andree balloon expedition

[asofterpole]

[TAPE POPS]

[just-barrow]

we had a little look around a local auction house a while ago and I thought I recognized these prints...and I was right!! such a random find but very cool. truly can't wait to put the arctic balloon disaster up on our wall

[eoin-mcgonigal]

g-d i want to YAP about salomon august andrée and the andrée expedition so bad. like give me one million years, there's so much to say about as a person. like prior to the expedition even..

[morbidboats]

I feel like it's so comforting to realise that people have been passionate about polar expedition history for a very long time. like I see you terror fans who got into it that way and I see my grandparents reading books about it and being so enthralled that my aunt's first plushie was a white teddy named Cherry-Garrard. I see this sweet man on ebay I transacted with recently who got into it via stamp collecting in the 90s. I see all the great blogs that sprung up in the early internet. I see my great grandmothers prized book about Andree's balloon that she got in the 1930s and that she kept all her life. Like there have always been people who felt that same fascination we do and I love that so much.

[roaldamundsen]

I desire every member of andree's stupid arctic balloon expedition carnally. and post

[plaguedocboi]

have you heard of the andree arctic balloon expedition? yes, you read that right, he tried to cross the north pole in a hydrogen balloon

I think we should all start doing stuff like this again

[thehutpoint]

One aspect of English romantic movement was to equate suffering with achievement. There was virtue in doing things hard way.

Roland Huntford "The last place on Earth". Well, spot on, Mr. Huntford, these ideas shine through the Scott's writings all the way. Though this brand of stupidity is not exclusive to British romantic movement, Polish romanticism was rife with that (with quite sad outcome for many people).

I find "The last place..." a fascinating read. Got completely absorbed with Amundsen's backstory, though I know it well, but Huntford knows how to tell a story. He is merciless though, both to Scott and to crumbling British Empire of Scott's era.

The tv series, based on Huntford's book, that premiered in the eighties was actually what introduced me to the stories of Scott and Amundsen when I was what... seven? And quite coincidentally )or maybe not) the scene that stuck in my memory for years was The Soldier, leaving the tent for the last time. Pity the actor who played Oates, Richard Morant, was so bland and uncharismatic, but I love Sverre Anker Ousdal as Amundsen (he was also great as Knut Frankel in Ingenjör Andrées luftfärd, a Swedish movie about the catastrophical polar balloon expedition by Andree), Martin Shaw as Scott, Sylvester McCoy as Birdie, Max von Sydow as Nansen (played Andree in the Ingenjör Andrées luftfärd, was absolutely delightful), Bill Nighy as Meares and last but not least Hugh Grant as Cherry.

Okay, I ranted enough, back to reading.

[weaselle]

i have some pictures for you. Ever heard of Andree's Arctic Balloon Expedition of 1897? As i recall, it was during the age of gentleman explorers, and this rich guy Andree decided he wanted to be the first person to ever fly a hot air balloon over the North Pole. So he hired a team of seamstresses to start making the balloon, and he hired an experienced science guy to make sure the trip would work.

But the science guy came to him during, like, the last couple weeks of the preparation and said, essentially "i've run all the numbers and several tests, and none of it looks good -- we'd be lucky to get to the North Pole without dying, and if we DID get there we would definitely all die, and by the way, have you really been sneaking into my lab and altering my test data on the balloon for more favorable test results?! i'm not going"

So Andree went and found what was basically a guy just out of college and said "eyo, i've got this expedition that's basically already been planned out by seasoned professionals, wanna be my science guy on the trip?" and the young man said, sounds legit, i sure do! and they set up the balloon and launched. There were immediate problems, before the launch was even complete, and they had to drop all their ballast basically give up most of their control of the balloon, which quickly took them deep into the arctic, dragged them along the ice at high speeds with no way to stop for several days straight, and then stranded them.

They had not planned their gear particularly well for such a contingency. For instance Andree had brought an entire cast iron stove. Which they had had to throw overboard fairly early on to keep from sinking directly into the arctic sea, iirc. Nevertheless, out of their nearly 7 thousand pounds of gear they had, they took the most useful stuff and struck out, and they managed to stay alive for the, like, 3 or 4 months it took them to travel a pretty long distance.

There were three of them, and if you look up the whole story it's quite interesting but the first science guy was right because they all died.

Anyway the third guy was a photographer Andree brought along to document, and if you know anyone who is really into photography, you know that they don't consider being in the middle of experiencing certain death to be any reason to stop taking pictures, so after a 30 year mystery we found three skeletons, some journals, and these

their meticulous records tell us the boat in the last pic was fashioned out of balloon silk, which i think shows a fair bit of ingenuity - i suspect on the part of the science guy.

Sounds like a really cool (ah-ha-ha) bathroom idea, i hope you can make it happen!

if I ever manage to own a house or flat the first thing i’m doing is making the bathroom polar disaster themed. like how people have beach/ocean themed bathrooms. but I’m hanging up ‘man proposes, god disposes’, the goodsir daguerreotype is gonna be there like a family portrait, i’m painting it the iciest colour blue possible and breaking the heating so it’s always cold as hell. every winter i’ll get to roleplay being sir john stuck down the ice hole

[huntseric]

“there's not much one can see of oneself without a mirror”

[odyhat]

Finally got my S. A. Andrée Balloon Expedition book and I'm losing my mind! The edition is from 1931. It has a lot of writen things in the pages, changing words because of the translation, and also I found part of a letter inside. The paper looks old and this could be from anyone. I'm in love with this.

[asofterpole]

burn everything. the heat lifts you faster.

[thehutpoint]

The two colleagues were photographer Nils Strindberg, whose father was a cousin of famous playwright August Strindberg, and Knut Fraenkel, an engineer, played here by Sverre Anker Ousdal. Sounds familiar? It should if you are a polarhead, as Sverre is the one who played Amundsen in "The Last Place on Earth". Here he is more beefy and more bicep-y, the muscle mass nonwhistanding he is always a delight to watch.

Andree himself is played by the great Swedish actor, Max von Sydow who is always worth watching and here gives wonderful performance. Coincidentally von Sydow also appeared in "The Last Place on Earth", playing nobody else but the pope of polar explorarion, Fritdjof Nansen. No, Goran Stangertz, who plays Strindberg, did not play in TLPotE.

Overall it is a great movie, really worth watching, especially if brave men dying stupidly on the ice is what makes you tick. Additional interesting thing is that the initial scenes of the balloon being constructed and released are meticulously copied from actual photos of Ornen. Similarly, Ornen's fall is also a copy of the pictures that were recovered with the remains of expedition members in 1930.

The Flight of the Eagle (1982). In 1897 Swedish engineer S. A. Andrée with 2 colleagues prepares to fly over the North Pole in his balloon "Eagle".

The cinematography of this is so staggeringly haunting that it feels seared into my memory already - not just in the profound shots of North Pole isolation, but in the energy and life of the Sweden that the three men have left behind in their search for adventure and legacy. Overall, the film takes a minute to get going, but once it does, it feels relentless in the way these sorts of movies should, with just the right tinge of horror to sell the - - well - - horror of the situation. It's pretty great. 8/10.

[othmeralia]

The Andrée's Arctic Balloon

Photo: Perspektivet Museum

In 1897, a group of Swedish explorers went to the North Pole in an air balloon and disappeared. Their fate would not be known for 30 more years. Tendrils of this story can be found in the letters between Svante Arrhenius and Georg Bredig.

The Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition took place in 1897 in which S. A. Andrée, Knut Frænkel, and Nils Strindberg voyaged by hydrogen balloon from Svalbard in July 1897, the plan was to fly over the north pole, as a way to advance Sweden's place in the race to the north pole.

Svante Arrhenius tells Georg Bredig about his friend Strindberg’s impending expedition in a letter written only months before the expedition.

“Strindberg is supposed to leave his bride and travel with Andrée to the North Pole with the 4th version of the Perpetuum mobile (they leave on May 17th).” - Letter from Svante Arrhenius to Georg Bredig, May 1899

On July 21, 1897, Arrhenius wrote

“One topic of lively discussion here is the polar expedition and how its three explorers are faring. The trip may take a month or maybe even longer. Perhaps they are sitting in snowdrifts and cannot travel further. Such a situation must be unpleasant.”

Letter from Svante Arrhenius to Georg Bredig

Andree was Sweden's first balloonist and proposed the expedition. Fraenkel was a Swedish engineer and Strindberg was a Swedish scientist and photographer. Unfortunately, the expedition was not completed and all three expedition members perished.

The balloon quickly lost hydrogen within the first two days of the expedition and crashed into a pack of ice, leaving the explorers in Svalbard. In October 1897 the three men made it to Kvitøya (White Island) in Svalbard. The island is almost completely covered in an ice cap and uninhabited. The three men were not able to survive the harsh arctic weather and perished.

Posing with the wreck (via Tekniska museet)

No one knew the fate of the explorers until August 5, 1930, when, due to a particularly warm summer, sealers could access the island. There they found the remains of the three men, their boat, journals, and exposed rolls of film that Stringbeg had taken. 93 photographs were able to be developed.

The photographs capture the balloon’s crash and the months following. The photographs show the camps they set up, hunting polar bears, and other realities of living in the arctic.

Photo: Neil Strindberg

To see more photos that have been developed visit

To learn more about the Papers of Max and Georg Bredig visit the Technical Museums Flickr

[seasonsgreetingscreature]

i wish someone would make a movie about the andree polar expedition because it's literally the stupidest idea i can imagine: imagine the terror but instead of 150 british men on a ship it's 3 swedish men on a hot air balloon headed straight for the north pole. spoiler alert: the balloon crashes after 48 hours and they're stuck on the ice for months and months until they all get eaten by polar bears. this movie needs to be a comedy obviously

[wikioftheweek]

List of Baby Geniuses Wiki of the Week Articles

0 Baby Geniuses

1 ASMR (unofficially; did not have a Wikipedia page at the time)

2 Fan death

3 Figging

4 Schmidt sting pain index

5 Bald-hairy

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8 Polyphasic sleep (now redirects to Biphasic and polyphasic sleep)

9 James Randi Educational Foundation

10 List of unusual deaths

11 Koro (medicine)

12 List of common misconceptions

13 Mojave phone booth

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16 Krampus and Zwarte Piet (Black Peter)

17 Scratch and sniff

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19 Jeanne Calment

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22 List of sexually active popes

23 Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

24 Emperor Norton

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29 Women in piracy

30 Art competitions at the Summer Olympics

31 List of animals with fraudulent diplomas (now redirects to List of animals awarded human credentials)

32 Prostitution among animals

33 Tenderoni

34 My Way killings

35 Mike the Headless Chicken

36 List of inventors killed by their own inventions

37 Inedia

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39 Tarrare

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43 List of people claimed to be Jesus

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45 How to keep chickens from eating their own eggs (Wikihow article)

46 List of nicknames used by George W. Bush

47 Cryptozoology

48 Bob the Railway Dog

49 Magic Castle (discussed very briefly)

50 Wartime cross-dressers

51 Streisand effect

52 Self-cannibalism

53 Sex in space

54 Other World Kingdom

55 Death erection

56 Taboo food and drink (now redirects to Food and drink prohibitions)

57 (no Wiki of the Week)

58 Florence Foster Jenkins

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60 Susunu! Denpa Shonen

61 Felix Moncla

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64 McDonald's urban legends

65 List of paraphilias

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73 List of unusual deaths

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78 Fart proudly

79 List of humorous units of measurement

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82 White Day

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84 Cymothoa exigua

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89 Cotard delusion

90 Why did the chicken cross the road?

91 Berners St hoax

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94 List of objects that have gone over Niagara Falls (now redirects to List of people who have gone over Niagara Falls)

95 Largest body part

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125 Bill Clinton Haircut Controversy (now redirects to Public Image of Bill Clinton section Haircutgate)

126 Penis captivus

127 Candle salad

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130 Gef

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132 Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands

133 Telling the bees

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140 Office assistant (also known as Clippy)

141 Virgin boy egg

142 Fartons

143 Balloonfest '86

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145 Curse of the colonel

146 Squatting position: Hunkerin' (section no longer exists)

147 Margaret Howe Lovatt

148 Cobra effect (now redirects to Perverse Incentive)

149 Frozen Dead Guy Days

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151 List of premature obituaries

152 Athletics at the 1904 Summer Olympics - Men's Marathon

153 Agnodice

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157 Catalan mythology about witches

158 List of gestures

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161 Flatulence humor

162 Mariko Aoki Phenomenon

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165 Mozart and scatology

166 Ming of harlem

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168 Andree's Arctic Balloon Expedition

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174 Wikipedia:Long-Term Abuse/List

175 Dhinga Gavar

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[nafjoaolampreia]

10 Times When History Repeated Itself but No One Realized It

Scientists say that history goes in circles. So the events we observe now, have already appeared in the past and are likely to come up in the future. This theory is known as historical recurrence.

1. Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations

Even though there is almost a century between the 2 crimes (1865 and 1963), scientists and others interested in this have found a number of similarities. Both presidents were killed by a gunshot to the head. The killings were in public, for Lincoln it happened in the Ford Theatre and for Kennedy it happened in a car. Interestingly, Kennedy took his last trip in a Lincoln limousine.

Both shootings happened on a Friday. Both killings are believed to have had a political undertone. In both cases the alleged criminal (a solo gunman) was caught and their name was released. The conspiracy theories around these 2 assassinations never stop growing and developing.

2. 2 remarkable Queens, Victoria and Elizabeth II

The British often compare these 2 queens. The first similarity is their remarkably long reign. Victoria ruled for over 63 years and was the longest reigning British monarch before September 2015, when Elizabeth II broke her record. Despite their long reign, both ladies are known for their interest in modern technologies.

Both become queens at an early age, Victoria 18 and Elizabeth 25. Both were happily married for a long time and both had more than one child. They are said to have been strict mothers and the actual heads of their families.

Both queens were once attacked by a gunman during a ride near Buckingham palace. And on a lighter note, both queens absolutely enjoy the love and respect of their nation.

3. Women warriors, Joan of Arc and Emilia Plater

These 2 young ladies led parts of their national armies and fought the enemy for the independence of their motherlands. Joan of Arc was a hero of the French struggle against the British empire in the 1420s. Emilia Plater led Polish troops against the Russian Empire during the uprising of 1830.

Both women were first rejected by army officials and had to try hard to get in the military. Both came from noble, but not super-rich families. Both wore male clothes to be an active part of the fighting. Also, both were an important motivating role for troops and were considered a symbol of the rebellion.

Unfortunately, both heroines died young. They have been commemorated by their nations and are even remembered today.

4. Josef Stalin and Genghis Khan

These 2 well-known men ruled the largest countries of their times, the USSR and the Mongol Kingdom. Both Josef Stalin and Genghis Khan were known for their cruelty and at the same time initiated significant reforms in their countries. Under Kahn’s rule the territories of the Mongol empire imposed a legal code (for the very first time), named Yassa.

Their personal life holds a number of similarities as well. Both spent their childhood in poverty and experienced the early death of their father. Both men took a pseudonym, describing their specific features: Stalin meaning “man of steel and Genghis Khan meaning “the great ruler.” Both lived a long life, more than 60 years, and were married several times.

Finally, the death of both rulers are full of rumors, mysteries, and conspiracy theories.

5. Napoleon and Charles XIV John of Sweden

If you consider someone an inspiration, you might try repeating their life story. Jean Bernadotte was born to a middle-class family and reached his top career point through army service. At the beginning, he was a fan of another talented military man, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was also self-made. Later on they both became friends for a while.

Both men reached top governmental positions without being royal by birth or blood. Napoleon became the French emperor after a revolution. Bernadotte was adopted by a Swedish king and ended up Charles XIV John, a king of Sweden. Both rulers introduced important reforms and changes in their countries and started a new dynasty.

6. The Titanic and The Vasa tragedies

Many people around the world recall the Titanic as a ship that sank during her maiden voyage. However, if they are Swedish, they’d definitely remember the Vasa. The fact that they sank is only one of a number of similarities between these 2 catastrophes.

In both cases the sinking was allegedly caused by construction issues. The issues were believed to have been because of the ships’ modernity and size. Also, both ships sank in good weather conditions and the deaths of the passengers were caused by the lack of safety boats and a poorly organized rescue process.

By the way, both ships were filled with very festive passengers who were relaxed and celebrating and both tragedies were a huge shock as there was so much excitement centered around these ships.

7. The Great Depression and The Great Recession

The Great Depression and the Great Recession are the 2 biggest economic downfalls of their time. Both crises began in the U.S. and later spread to the rest of the world. They caused a great number of problems in different spheres internationally (like the tension between Greece and the EU, or the rise of the Nazi regime).

In the 1920s stock market imploded due to the massive sales of overpriced shares which caused the Great Depression in 1929. The Great Recession is attributed to the high-risk loan (aka, mortgage) crisis. The Depression happened so long ago that there has been more than enough time to analyze it. Yet historians and economists alike are still asking new questions.

The study of the Great Recession is ongoing and will need much more time to be properly analyzed.

8. The mysteries of the Dyatlov Pass and Andrée’s Arctic balloon expeditions

In 1959 a group of students traveled to the Ural mountains (USSR) for a 2-week expedition and they never returned. Another group, who were led by S.S. Andree (Sweden), was trying to reach the North Pole in 1897, only to die on the way.

It’s likely that the members of these 2 expeditions had never even heard about each other and it’s the mysterious deaths of the expeditions’ members that unite these 2 stories. Both groups consisted of amateurs but despite that they were very well-prepared. They carried enough warm clothes, matches, etc. to survive for a long time.

The weather conditions were reported to be suitable for the journeys. Scientists and amateurs are still studying photos, DNA samples, and other materials searching for the cause of these tragedies.

9.The Erdington Murders

2 20-year-old women were murdered in Erdington, a suburb of Birmingham, England on the 27th of May at night. Mary Ashford and Barbara Forrest had both been drowned at a local pool. Both bodies had bruises, showed signs of rape, and both girls had been out dancing the previous night.

The only difference is that there are 157 years between these cases. Mary was murdered in 1817 and Barbara in 1974. In both cases the investigators never found the murderer, even though there were many suspects who were released by the court due to a lack of evidence.

The siblings of both victims tried to appeal the court decision and failed and the mysteries are still well-remembered in the neighborhood.

10. Chaplin and Distracted Boyfriend

A meme known as Distracted Boyfriend appeared on the internet in the 2010s. It is believed to have first been introduced on Facebook by an unknown user. The image shows a young man turning to look at another woman while holding hands with his girlfriend. This situation often appears today in real life and it also happened in the Chaplin-era of cinema.

A poster from 1922 shows a Charlie Chaplin film called “Pay Day” that looks incredibly close to this meme. We can see the main hero, his wife, and the lady attracting his attention. Obviously this was long before the internet era, but the similarity is striking!

https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/10-times-when-history-repeated-itself-but-no-one-realized-it-you-might-want-to-check-your-textbooks-after-reading-this-567010/